Talk:Castrato
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[edit] What I'd like to know
What were the physical implications for these guys. I heard their limbs would never stop growing and they became twisted. Throw in a picture please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.79.229.75 (talk • contribs).
- I think they were fairly normal, except they didn't mature sexually. See Castration for more information. Limbs continuing to grow definitely is not a side effect of castration, though. Mak (talk) 18:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm quite sure your wrong. the absence of testosterone meant that the limbs (and all bones for that matter) grew indefinately, probably up until death. I also heard that it was normal for them to develop breasts but this may be false. Apparently the body of the really famous one, Firilli or something like that- anyway his body was exhumed recently so the side effects could be studied. Somebody should write another section on this because i cant be bothered plus ive never written in wiki before.
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- Um, did you read about castration? It isn't testosterone which causes you to stop growing, anyway. Developing breasts is a side effect of extra female hormones (progestin, estrogen, etc.) not an absence of male hormones. The medical issues should really be dealt with in the castration article anyway, the only medical issue which is really relevant to this article is that their voices didn't break and that they were larger and stronger than boys, but still had high voices (note that their vocal folds didn't continue to grow longer and thicker until they were sub-basses). Mak (talk) 21:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes i did, and its poor. A documentry (human mutants) on BBC's channel 4 mention castratos last year stating that 'in the absence of testosterone they grew to gigantic proportions. I think the breasts had more to do with their large lung capacitys. These guys were entertainers who sang before audiences so i think their appearence is relevent. This is the sort of info am into and enjoy reading about. i demand to see freaks and if nobody can find a picture for this page why dont you take one of yourself for us
It is not sexual maturity that stops humans from growing. After all, puberty usually ends a couple of years before you stop to grow. However, serve infections during upbringing makes people shorter. The castration of boys seam to have ended before the breakthtough of antiseptics. Under such conditions only the boys with especialy strong immune systems would have suvived. The infections they inevitably get never become serve, so they may well have become taller then average. If this is correct castrati was not extreamly tall by today’s standards. I see no reason why they would develop breasts since this IS due to female hormones. But it is possible that castrati become fat more often then others: I realy don’t know.
2007-01-08 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
[edit] Old
Perhaps a list of parts written for/sung by castrati, as at the other vocal music pages? (Caesar in Giulio Cesare and Serse in Serse, for example.) Roscelese 15:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
In this sentence "The male heroic lead would often be written for a castrato singer (in the operas of Handel for example). When such operas are performed today, a woman or countertenor takes these roles." shouldn't this read "The female heroic lead ..."? I know nothing about opera, but it seems odd to have a castrato singer playing the male lead. --Lee Hunter 18:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
No, it does mean the male heroic lead. Castrati dominated opera at the time. Kinda makes me cringe, but that's the way it was.
Could someone post the MP3 of the last castrato? I think that would be a terrific addition, and it MUST be PD by now if it was done in 1914! -- SJ Zero
[edit] What I'd like to know
…is the sort of circumstances in which boys could be castrated for choirs. In what situations, for instance, did their parents allow it? Or were castrati typically chosen from church wards? The article seems to have no information about these details. I would like to better understand the method behind the cruelty. Who, exactly, can we blame for what? —RadRafe 05:13, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
no-one was castrated specifically for church choirs. The church forbade castration but it 'took advantage' of the fashion for castrati by recruiting them into its choirs anyway. Typically boys would be castrated at the instigation of their, often very poor, families in the hope that they would be succesful singers and provide for them. Roydosan 22:23, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What I'd like to know
Castrato or the male soprano is kool, but what is castration? I hope it isn't what I think it is, because if it is that, then they were wrong back then. Explain that please?
- Um, yeah, it's what you think it is. Castrato, from Castration. RasputinAXP talk contribs 22:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
To explain it simply: those guys had their balls removed as children. That prevented their voices from ever becoming like that of an adult man.
2007-02-04 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
[edit] Modern castrato?
I wonder whether any doctor has gone on record admitting that he performed this operation on Michael Jackson? I wouldn't put it past his father to do the act himself, but it's fairly evident that plastic surgeons are not the only scalpel-wielders who've excised a piece of him.
- Uh, no. He clearly has a chest voice. He just now speaks and mostly sings in his falsetto. A lot of people seem to confuse the concept of falsetto with the idea of castration, but that is completely and entirely false. Mak (talk) 14:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have no reason to believe that Michael Jackson is a castrato. If I understand it right castrati had voices similar to that of pre-pubertal children. Michael’s voice does not sound very childlike to me: he sounds more like a man imitating a woman. The falsetto voice is probably a part of his androgynous style. Maybe even an image he cultivates… (laugh)
2007-01-09 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
“…only approximatly 1% of fully or partially castrated boys developed into successful singers.” Was that partly because so few boys survived the castration? Without antiseptics or anaesthesia any surgery was very dagerous. I have heard that less than 20% survied castration under such circumstances. Anyone who know the real number?
Furthermore, I wonder what “fully or partially castrated” means. I can imagine three degrees of castration that could have been preformed in those days. The first degree means that you just open the scrotum and take out the tests. At the second the degree you cut off the whole scrotum. The third degree include the removal of all outer genitals. Can’t the autor express him- or herself more clearly?
2007-01-30 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
[edit] References supplied
I've just done a big edit on this page, and supplied references, which I hope are sufficient for this page to get "upgraded" to one with proper citations. I'll add some images soon.--voxclamans 23:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
