Martha Feldman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520279490
- eISBN:
- 9780520962033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279490.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
As the eighteenth century wore on and absolutism crumbled, the bourgeois was consolidating its fear of the castrato, whom it denatured in sharpened critiques. Castrati were ever more ...
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As the eighteenth century wore on and absolutism crumbled, the bourgeois was consolidating its fear of the castrato, whom it denatured in sharpened critiques. Castrati were ever more incomprehensible, indeed anathema to Europe’s new self-conception. The singing of castrati adapted via two modes: an Orphic and sensible voice, epitomized by Gluck’s Orpheus (as cultivated by Guadagni, Millico, and Pacchierotti) and defined by Susan Burney’s journals in England, and a virtuosic one as perfected by Marchesi.Less
As the eighteenth century wore on and absolutism crumbled, the bourgeois was consolidating its fear of the castrato, whom it denatured in sharpened critiques. Castrati were ever more incomprehensible, indeed anathema to Europe’s new self-conception. The singing of castrati adapted via two modes: an Orphic and sensible voice, epitomized by Gluck’s Orpheus (as cultivated by Guadagni, Millico, and Pacchierotti) and defined by Susan Burney’s journals in England, and a virtuosic one as perfected by Marchesi.
