Farinelli
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Farinelli (January 24, 1705–July 15, 1782), whose real name was Carlo Broschi, was one of the most famous Italian soprano castrato singers of the 18th century.
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[edit] Early Years
Broschi was born in Puglia to a family of minor nobility. His father Salvatore, was a governor of Marate and Cisternino from 1706 to 1709. Broschi was castrated as a boy to preserve his young voice into adulthood.
Following in the tradition Broschi was sent to a "conservatory" reserved for the training of castrati. These conservatories gave the boys extensive voice training, lessons on composing and also provided them with the opportunity to improvise. Teachers reported that Broschi elaborated on the compositions he was given to the delight of his audiences. He took the stage name Farinelli, after an Italian magistrate.
Under the instruction of Nicola Porpora, Farinelli acquired a voice of marvellous beauty. He became famous throughout southern Italy as il ragazzo ("the boy"). Farinelli sang in a public venue for the first time at the 1720 performance of Porpora's Angelica e Medoro. In 1722 he made his first appearance at Rome in his master's Eumene and received so great enthusiasm that he surpassed popular German trumpet player, for whom Porpora had written an obbligato to one of the boy's songs. According to contemporaries, he held and swelled a note of prodigious length, purity and power, and introduced variations, roulades and trills into the air. In operas he often sang the leading woman role in Porpora's Adelaide.
[edit] Tours in Europe
In 1724, Farinelli appeared at Vienna, and the following year at Venice and then returned to Napoli shortly afterwards. He sang at Milan in 1726, where Johann Joachim Quantz heard him and wrote of his singing:
- "Farinelli had a penetrating, full, rich, bright and well-modulated soprano voice, with a range at that time from the A below middle C to the D two octaves above middle C. ... His intonation was pure, his trill beautiful, his breath control extraordinary and his throat very agile, so that he performed the widest intervals quickly and with the greatest ease and certainty. Passagework and all kinds of melismas were of no difficulty to him. In the invention of free ornamentation in adagio he was very fertile."
Farinelli sang at Bologna in 1727. There he met and acknowledged himself vanquished by the singer Antonio Bernacchi (fifteen years Farinelli's senior), to whose instruction he was much indebted. With ever-increasing success and fame, Farinelli appeared in nearly all the great cities of Italy. Handel praised his voice and tried unsuccessfully to meet him in January 1730 in Venice. Farinelli returned a third time to Vienna in 1731.
According to some contemporary commentators, Farinnelli modified his style on the advice of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor. He expanded his repertoire from mere bravura of the Porpora School to one of pathos and simplicity. He visited London in 1734 and sang in support of a faction that opposed Handel and had set up a rival opera with Porpora as composer and Senesino as principal singer. Unfortunately, even Farinelli's performance did not make them a success.
Farinelli's first appearance at the Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre was in Artaserse; his brother Riccardo Broschi had composed most of the music. His success was instantaneous. Frederick, Prince of Wales and the court loaded him with favours and presents. After three years in England, Farinelli set out for Spain, stayed a few months on the way in France, where he sang before Louis XV.
[edit] Singing for the court of Spain
Farinelli had intended to stay in Spain for only a few months but ended up staying for 22 years. Queen Isabel de Farnesio had invited him to Spain to use his voice to cure King Philip V of his depression. Farinelli's singing seemed to work and he gained Philip's favor which eventually gave him the indirect political influence some contemporaries compared to that of the prime minister. For two decades, Farinelli was required to sing the same songs to the king but he did not perform in public any more.
Shortly after the ascension of King Ferdinand VI, Farinelli was appointed director of theatres in Madrid and Aranjuez, and most of the operas he put on had texts by Pietro Metastasio. He was knighted in 1750 and decorated with the cross of Calatrava. He used his influence in court to persuade Ferdinand to establish an Italian opera company in court. He also collaborated with Domenico Scarlatti, a fellow Neapolitan living in Spain. The musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick acknowledges Farinelli's correspondence as providing "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day."
[edit] Retirement and death
After the accession of Charles III in 1760, Farinelli retired to Bologna with the fortune he had amassed. Some contemporary musicians, including Charles Burney, Mozart and Casanova visited him there. He spent the remainder of his days with Metastasio, dying a few months after him.
Farinelli was buried in his mantle of the order of Calatrava, as he had requested. He was interred in the cemetrery of a hillside Capuchin monastery and Church of Santa Croce in Bologna. His estate included gifts from royalty and valuable musical instruments, such as a Stradivarius violin. When the original cemetery was destroyed, Farinelli's grandniece Carlotta Pisani Broschi moved his remains to the La Certosa cemetery of Bologna in 1810.
[edit] Farinelli's performances
Farinelli not only sang, but also played keyboard instruments and the viola d'amore. He occasionally composed, writing the text and music of a farewell to London aria, and an aria for Ferdinand VI, as well as keyboard sonatas.
[edit] Farinelli Study Center
Farinelli lived in Bologna from 1761 to 1782, the year of his death. The Farinelli Study Center (Centro Studi Farinelli) was opened in Bologna in 1998. The main goals of the Center are:
- Restoration of Farinelli’s grave at the Certosa of Bologna (2000)
- The historical exhibition Farinelli a Bologna (2001 and 2005)
- The inauguration of the City Park in the name of Farinelli, near the site where the singer lived in Bologna (2002)
- The International Symposium Il Farinelli e gli evirati cantori on the occasion of Farinelli’s 300th anniversary of his birth (2005)
- The official publication Il fantasma del Farinelli (2005)
- The disinterment of Farinelli at the Certosa of Bologna (2006)
[edit] Disinterment
The Farinelli's remains were disinterred on July 12, 2006 from the Certosa cemetery. The stacking of the bones had degraded the condition of Farinelli's remains that included his jawbone, several teeth, parts of his skull and almost all of his major bones. Florentine antiquarian Alberto Bruschi and Luigi Verdi, Secretary of Farinelli Study Center, coordinator and general manager of the project promoted the exhumation.
The next day Carlo Vitali of the Farinelli Study Center stated that the major bones were "long and sturdy, which would correspond with Farinelli's official portraits, as well as the castrati's reputation for being unusually tall."
Maria Giovanna Belcastro of the Antropology Institute of Bologna University, Gino Fornaciari, paleoantropologist of the Pisa University and engineer David Howard of York University are charged to get new data on Farinelli and his lifestyle, habits and possible diseases, as well as the physiology of a castrato. They intend to use X-rays, CAT scans and DNA sampling.
[edit] Popular Culture
A movie Farinelli Il Castrato, was made about Farinelli's life in 1994, though it takes some dramatic license with the history. For example, Farinelli's brother is given much importance and Porpora is de-emphasized, while Handel becomes an antagonist. The movie also offers a different explanation for how Carlo Broschi came to take the stage name Farinelli. It is not the first dramatic work to take Farinelli's life as its source material. The composer Daniel Auber wrote an opera with a script by Eugène Scribe.
In L.E. Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle, the soprano sorceress Anna names her horse (a gelding) Farinelli
[edit] References
- This entry was originally based on the entry in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie
- Orchestration… Or Castration (History Today September 2006)
