The Castrato Sacrifice: Was it Justified? Page: 57
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This may sound like a terrible fate, but these failed singers still were gainfully employed, and in
a much more pleasant career than, had they even survived poverty as a child, tending to the
livestock or toiling in the fields. Refeudalization and deindustrialization oppressed these
families, and these boys, whether superstars or not, were given a type of pardon from this life.
The castrati were also essential to music history and to the development of opera. The
necessity for the castrato voice was borne from musical need, and in turn the reality of the
castrato voice shaped Baroque vocal writing, particularly in opera. When studying the music
written during that period, it was undoubtedly composed specifically for the castrato voice. The
floridity and coloratura of the passages are obviously meant for these new voices that made such
music even possible. Early Italian opera simply would not have existed as we know it without
the castrati. To put it succinctly,
...Italian opera was, till the late 18th century, almost synonymous with the castrati, and
that Italian opera was the opera that really mattered. (Heriot 1987)
The castrato style became the taste and fashion of audiences, and composers yielded and wrote
accordingly. Roles were created to be sung by castrati and many times, for specific castrato
singers. Handel created many roles for Senesino, and even Gluck, who advocated the reform of
opera from what he considered abuses of the time, created the title role of Orfeo for castrato
Gaetano Guadagni (Howard 1999).
Early opera began to give way to opera seria. Siface, the castrato who was murdered by
his lover's family, seemed to be the singer whose "career bridged the gap between what one
might call "early" opera (Cavalli) and the arrival of opera seria" (Somerset-Ward 2004).
In the late 17th century, an entirely new style of singing was born. This legato technique
that is now taught as the bel canto style coincided with the rise of opera seria, and the two cannot
exist separately. Castrati were a large part of this, making the new style even possible.57
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Sowle, Jennifer. The Castrato Sacrifice: Was it Justified?, thesis, August 2006; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc5343/m1/60/: accessed May 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .