Castrati


Castrati

 

a special kind of Italian singer of the 16th through18th centuries (also called sopranisto). Castration in early child-hood left their voices with a boy’s pitch (soprano or mezzo-soprano) and timbre but with an adult’s power. The castrati sanghigh parts (including female parts), difficult virtuoso passages, and sustained notes. In the 16th century castrati performedwidely in Catholic church choirs, from which women werebanned, but in the 17th and 18th centuries they became centralto Italian opera.