This method, used for the feminine voice to be heard in choirs, sounds murderous. However, this situation could also be an escape to wealth for poor families living in Italy. If he had the potential to become an artist who could make a name for himself, it was only a matter of time before he became rich.
Why would anyone voluntarily accept such a thing, when poverty was the reason behind this being seen as a “liberation”? Moreover, there are many disadvantages!
In 16th-century Italy, fine-voiced boys were trained to be church singers.
This seemingly innocent ideal was actually the salvation goal of poor families. Because these boys could gain fame by taking part in church choirs. Glory and fame, on the other hand, was not something that could be earned immediately in Italy at that time, it required effort.
A boy born with a thin and high-pitched voice would only be able to maintain his glory if he could preserve this voice for life. When they thought that the child’s voice would deepen during puberty, only one possibility came to mind: castration!
Sopranos, meso-sopranos, and contralto-voiced boys were castrated to become church singers. It was also called castrato.
In the 16th century, women’s participation in church choirs was prohibited by the Pope. After this ban, castratos gradually gained popularity. While the high-pitched boys were making up for the lack of female voices in the church choirs, they were castrated to prevent their vocal cords from thickening.
Boys who had a high-pitched voice due to a lack of testosterone had strange developments in their bones after they were castrated. Tall stature and wide rib cage were also the most common of these developments. The wide thorax also revealed their ability to use their breath. This was a sign of a good artistic life.
The Church forbade the amputation of organs, except for life-threatening situations. Despite this, he was castrated illegally.
The castrati reached their heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries, when they originally began in the church. When they started to take part in the opera, they rose to become stars. For example, one of them is Carlo Maria Broschi, who appeared under the name Farinelli…
Even more interestingly, it wasn’t just doctors who castrated them. Barbers also had the authority to castrate children. According to the research, 20% of the children who were castrated without anesthesia died during the operation.
The surviving children also went through serious training.
Castratos, who were lucky, started to take voice training by stepping into a glittering life. This tradition, practiced only in Italy, brought many names to Europe. Castratos who sang for royal families in Europe enjoyed great fame and fortune.
One cannot help but wonder if it was worth so much fame and fortune. Because later on, these children had hormonal disorders. Each castrato saw bone resorption and growth, and moreover, this was just the simplest of the apparent problems.
Castratism also fell out of favor when the church allowed female singers to return to the church in the 19th century.
This event, which was glorified over time, became a source of shame in Italy and took its place in the dusty pages of history. We access the only sound recording of this interesting tradition thanks to the performance of the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
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