Denaturing the Castrato

Abstract

In the late-eighteenth century, the brilliant vocal art of the castrati had started to cloud over with charges of aristocratic luxury, vanity, and decadence, charges that were inseparable from Enlightenment critiques of castration itself. The Bolognese marquis Francesco Albergati Capacelli (1728–1804) penned strident denunciations on both fronts, including them in the inflated preface he attached to his newly printed comedy Il ciarlator maldicente (The Badmouthing Chatterbox): I owe … a public pronouncement to Truth. In speaking against castrati, … I inveigh against their profession, their state, and the unworthy principle of maintaining, feeding, fomenting, cherishing, and rewarding it. … the time has come to stop sacrificing these wretched victims. Is it not enough that a throat and the [lure of] luxury should expose the lives of so many people to such calamities? … that people should nevertheless want to reduce men to vile disgusting monsters simply to have their ears tickled with a little aria?1

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