Thoughts for the day

[Shakesthecoffecan]

so they can take turns?? 

Damn I do have a dirty imagination......

[Jeff Wrangler]

The singers were castrated to keep their voices boyish and high pitched.  Some price to pay for art!

Yes, there was a film about one of them back in the '90s, I think. I forget what it was called and I never got around to seeing it. 

Jess seemed to be suggesting that in the plot of the Anne Rice novel the character was castrated for some reason connected with the inheritance. That's why I was asking.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Damn I do have a dirty imagination......

It don't cost anything to imagine. ... 

[southendmd]

Yes, there was a film about one of them back in the '90s, I think. I forget what it was called and I never got around to seeing it. 

You mean Farinelli.  I never saw it either.

[southendmd]

Here's a youtube clip of Farinelli singing "Laschia ch'io pianga", my favorite Handel aria.  Apparently, they digitally combined the voice of a countertenor and a soprano to "create" the castrato voice, as no one really knows what it would sound like. 

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWMOmBohlTE[/youtube]

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Here is what purports to be the only recording of a castrato, recorded at the Sistine Chapel in 1902.  His name was Alessandro Moreschi. He lived 1858-1922 and was apparently castrated close to birth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Moreschi

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv-S3uoeTXg[/youtube]

[Jeff Wrangler]

You mean Farinelli.  I never saw it either.

Yes, that's it. Thanks, Paul.

We used to have a guy in our church choir who could sing countertenor. He was amazing.

[injest]

Thanks, Jess, that does sound like an interesting story. Wouldn't be the first novel I've read with a castrated central character, either. That would be Mary Renault's The Persian Boy.

I take it he's castrated so he can't have any offspring to inherit?

partly, His brother didn't want to KILL him for fear of how his mother would react (she was not the mother of the older brother). The boy, Tonio, liked to wander the streets at night with his friends singing and was very good....so the brother hatched this idea that he could have the boy castrated and tell the mother that Tonio did it to himself to keep his voice from changing...that Tonio dreamed of being a singer (which of course was not true) Tonio was too old to be castrated and was very traumatized....but he had no choice and dealt with things as best he could.

(I LOVE Bagoas from The Persian Boy....but Tonio is not like Bagoas at all...Tonio is a warrior at heart)

[Jeff Wrangler]

partly, His brother didn't want to KILL him for fear of how his mother would react (she was not the mother of the older brother). The boy, Tonio, liked to wander the streets at night with his friends singing and was very good....so the brother hatched this idea that he could have the boy castrated and tell the mother that Tonio did it to himself to keep his voice from changing...that Tonio dreamed of being a singer (which of course was not true) Tonio was too old to be castrated and was very traumatized....but he had no choice and dealt with things as best he could.

(I LOVE Bagoas from The Persian Boy....but Tonio is not like Bagoas at all...Tonio is a warrior at heart)

Thanks, Jess. Oooo, Tonio. That's a hot name. ... 

[injest]

Thanks, Jess. Oooo, Tonio. That's a hot name. ... 

well it was very readable...not like some of her books lately...

and yes, Tonio got his self around once he got into the swing of things.....Domenique, the Bishop, a dark eyed man in the back streets of Rome,
 
and of course his teacher and lover, Guido...