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Castrato, 2006 BBC documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ZAraf5wMc&list=PL093EBA61CDBC96C2&feature=plpp_play_all I adore Baroque opera, it's got to be my favorite form of music. In almost all Italian-style Baroque operas, the part of the hero is written for a castrato -- a man who had his testicles surgically removed before puberty to prevent his voice from changing. The last surgical castrato died in 1922, so today those parts are usually sung by countertenors or sopranists, occasionally women in drag, less occasionally by natural castrati (there just aren't that many anymore since the advent of hormone replacement therapy). When you listen to Baroque opera all the time, it seems perfectly normal and unremarkable that the good guys have high voices and the bad guys low. You don't question it. It isn't until you step back that you realize how bizarre the whole concept of the castrato is and how abhorrent was the practice. The documentary is about castrati and the castrato voice -- what it was and what it wasn't -- and it attempts to recreate it by morphing a boy's voice with a changed man's voice. Sort of like in the movie Farinelli, but a bit less crap. Only a bit, though. I started to write about my quibbles with the documentary and clarified some stuff it sort of glossed over, but it turned into a wall of text that I figured no one would read. Suffice to say, it oversimplifies some historical points and I question their choice of performers. Still, it could have been a lot worse, and it's a decent intro if you're unfamiliar with Baroque opera or if you've never given castrati much thought.
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Jan 22, 2012 17:30
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GonzoIsKing posted:Don't know how much interest there will be for this. but there is a great comprehensive 13 hour(split into 13 parts) documentary on American Silent Film on youtube:
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Mar 5, 2012 12:53
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