This week we’re diving into the castrati, the choirboys who paid the ultimate price to hit the high notes. We cover how the church justified it, what actually went down in the procedure (spoiler: it’s grim), and why these singers were so popular. Of course, we can’t resist the scandals, the bedroom rumors, and all the messy ways castrati blurred gender and power. As always, there are way too many ball jokes and questionable accents, yet a surprising number of parallels to modern pop stars.

Sources:

Jenkins, John S. “Mozart and the Castrati.” The Musical Times, vol. 151, no. 1913, Winter 2010, pp. 55–68.

Jenkins, John S. "The Lost Voice: A History of the Castrato." Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 13, no. 6 (suppl.), February 2000, pp. 1503–1508. Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism. DOI: 10.1515/jpem-2000-s625.

Melicow, M. M. “Castrati Singers and the Lost ‘Cords.’” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, vol. 59, no. 8, Oct. 1983, pp. 744–764.

Mount, H. “Treble Voices in English Choral Tradition.” Music & Letters, 1976.

Rosselli, John. “The Castrati as a Professional Group and a Social Phenomenon, 1550–1850.” Acta Musicologica, vol. 60, no. 2, May–Aug. 1988, pp. 143–179.

Sherr, Richard. “Guglielmo Gonzaga and the Castrati.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 33, 1980, pp. 33–56.

Taylor, Aaron. The Reception of the Castrati in Early-Eighteenth-Century London. Undergraduate dissertation, University of Bristol, 2013.

Lanzillotta, Lee. “What a Queer Institution Was the Castrati.” The Gay & Lesbian Review, July–Aug. 2024 issue, 1 July 2024, glreview.org/article/what-a-queer-institution-was-the-castrati/. 

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