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Eunuchs & Castrati

JamesWhitehead

JamesWhitehead

Piffle Prospector
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The Last of the Castrati, Alessandro Moreschi retired from the
Sistene chapel choir as late as 1913. He died in 1922.

He made a fair number of gramophone records in 1902 & 1904
and these were reissued in OPAL 823 in the 1980s.

Having heard the records, I wish I could say the voice was
worth the price paid. In my case it was at least only £12!

It is a thousand pities that the next-to-last of the castrati,
Domenico Mustafa, 1829 - 1912 did not record. His voice was
said to be of superlative beauty and Wagner had originally
planned the part of the self-castrated Klingsor in Parsifal for him! :eek:
 
James Whitehead said:
The Last of the Castrati, Alessandro Moreschi retired from the
Sistene chapel choir as late as 1913. He died in 1922.
Click to expand...
Deletia
It is a thousand pities that the next-to-last of the castrati,
Domenico Mustafa, 1829 - 1912 did not record. His voice was
said to be of superlative beauty and Wagner had originally
planned the part of the self-castrated Klingsor in Parsifal for him! :eek:
Click to expand...


I stand (or rather, sit) corrected. I knew there were still some kicking around fairly late in the 19th, and do recall something about a few recordings, but I've learned not to trust my memory in these matters.

Thanks for the clarification. I shall now file it away, and promptly lose it next time I need it. (On the other hand, next time I'm trying to remember where I left the remote for the TV, this will no doubt pop up.)
 
James Whitehead said:
The Last of the Castrati, Alessandro Moreschi retired from the
Sistene chapel choir as late as 1913. He died in 1922.

He made a fair number of gramophone records in 1902 & 1904
and these were reissued in OPAL 823 in the 1980s.

Having heard the records, I wish I could say the voice was
worth the price paid. In my case it was at least only £12!

It is a thousand pities that the next-to-last of the castrati,
Domenico Mustafa, 1829 - 1912 did not record. His voice was
said to be of superlative beauty and Wagner had originally
planned the part of the self-castrated Klingsor in Parsifal for him! :eek:
Click to expand...

I rmember reading in Gay Times that a record (I refuse to use the term CD) of music asosated with Mustafa has been released.

In Art and Leis by Ginet Winterson there is a forage among the vaslts of the vatican wich throws up a wax recording by him as well as the complete, unburner works of Sapho. If only it where true.
 
*I hope this isn't too gross, but I figured I'd ask it here*

I saw this film a while back, Farranelli was the name I believe, about the last "castrato" musician from the turn of the last century (castrated to keep his superior kid's range voice from lowering).

In any case, the movie begins with him having sexual relations with a lady, and he does this for a while, then his brother comes in according to Farranelli to "finish the job". This would imply that he could get an erection, but no climax... I thought eunuch's stayed in the "limp" position perminently. What's the real deal, or are there different levels of eunuch taht would account for the scene in Farranelli?
 
AFAIK men who have been castrated are indeed capable of erections (and possibly even orgasm.) What they dont do is produce sperm.
 
Yes, castration does not nullify the libido. The castrati were vain
creatures who boasted of their love affairs. Some were said to have
sired children, though this seems highly unlikely, unless an undescended
third testicle was responsible.

I am reading Patrick Barbier's book The World of the Castrati at the moment.

No falsetto or counter-tenor or female alto can really imitate the sound of the
short vocal chords powered by big lungs. Don't forget that testosterone
is a growth-limiter so the castrati grew to be big blokes with female fat deposits.

I really think they should be reintroduced. There were rumours that one boy soprano
had his puberty chemically delayed for commercial reasons a few years back but
they drew back from the cut!

I think the name of Moreschi has been mentioned before on these pages. He was
the last of the Sistene Chapel castrati and he lived to make gramophone records
around 1904. I have heard them and they are painful to the ear, though one
enthusiast has suggested that they need to be played in a very spacious acoustic
for his unique timbre to be appreciated. :rolleyes:
 
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Nowadays they could probably extract the sperm and freeze it before the cut. Some of them must be virile before their voices break.
 
I have heard them and they are painful to the ear
Click to expand...

They are difficult to listen too, but IMO only because the recording quality is so low and there's a lot of noise going on too. A very interesting voice, you can see why when they made Farinelli they processed a male and female voice together for his singing.

IIRC castrati could get erections but often couldn't reach orgasm, so they could keep going for a very long time (or at least longer than the usual 5 minutes:D )
 
Is it impossible to make a castrati nowadays? I would consider it abuse, just because if it was the parent's decision, it wouldn't be the kids, and afaik kids aren't allowed to make that kind of life-altering decision on their own.

Also, would there be anybody alive who could properly develope the singing ability of a castrati, since there hasn't been one alive in so long?

Going back to eunuchs: if they can still achieve mighty erections, wouldn't the "sultan's wives" of lore, who were to be watched over by eunuchs, just as likely to shack up with the many eunuchs around? Was the idea just that the castrati wouldn't be able to produce kids in the king's house?
 
I think the eunuchs of the harem were unlikely to sport erections
because they had been totally emasculated!

"Bad news, Osmin! You've been a very bad eunuch. Today you kiss goodbye
to your fingers."
:p
 
I suppose the castrati in Church singing served a similar function to choirboys, in that originally the sound of the voices was intended to be genderless, like the singing of angels. That was certainly the case for female singers trained from an early age to sing in a 'deep' voice. I heard a recreation on Radio 3 about a year ago of an 18th century piece intended to be sung in this way and it sounded very odd indeed.
 
Is it impossible to make a castrati nowadays? I would consider it abuse, just because if it was the parent's decision, it wouldn't be the kids, and afaik kids aren't allowed to make that kind of life-altering decision on their own.
Click to expand...

In Western countries, no. Perhaps India or Pakistan where they have a tradition of eunuchs you might find a case of one being castrated that young, with some of the things reported on this board that go on there I don't imagine that they'd have too much of an ethical problem with it.
 
A Question of Eunuchs,

'tis all Colemanballs surely?

What Happens Next?
 
The story goes that the Ottoman eunuchs were certainly capable of getting jiggy-jiggy, and often did. The important thing was that there could be no question of their sireing.

During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the chief black eunuch was at times the most powerful man in the empire, controlling access to the Sultan & being the principle source of preferment. The black eunuchs originated in North Africa, while the others were gathered from the Caucasus and western med (Southern France specialised in the production of eunuchs). All things considered, they weren't that badly off; many enriched themselves tremendously, and a few exerted enormous influence over the policy of the state.

I believe the last eunuchs were expelled from the Imperial Palaces in 1908 when the Hareket Ordusu occupied Constantinople and assumed power. Would be interesting to know what became of them.
 
Originally posted by Mr. R.I.N.G.
Is it impossible to make a castrati nowadays? I would consider it abuse, just because if it was the parent's decision, it wouldn't be the kids, and afaik kids aren't allowed to make that kind of life-altering decision on their own.

What about circumcision?Isn't that abuse too?
Click to expand...
 
Beauty therapy for Indian eunuchs

Beauty therapy for Indian eunuchs
By Paddy Maguire
BBC News, Chennai


Eunuchs in southern India are training as therapists and beauticians in a move to integrate them in a society which largely shuns them.

In Tamil Nadu state there are an estimated 150,000 eunuchs (or "aruvani" as they now prefer to be called).

Most eke out a living by begging and many end up working in the sex industry.

The new scheme is the brainchild of M Nikkila, a Madras (Chennai) based beautician and therapist.

"Four years ago I saw one eunuch beggar being mercilessly harassed by the public. These days they have no place in society, no rights, no jobs.

"So I thought I would train them to become beauty therapists. This course is the first step."

Identity crisis

Teaching her group of six a range of treatments from pedicures to massage, Nikkila's aim is twofold - to instil a new sense of self-worth and to equip her pupils with skills they can use to earn a salary.


Most of us in this group are well-educated and from good families but our parents would not accept us, so we had to leave
Priya Babu, eunuch

The business plan is simple. By calling on Nikkila's wide network of clients built up over 15 years of practice, the eunuchs will do "home visits". Their female clients will buy the particular products they need, removing the pressure of large financial outlay by the newly trained therapists.

Unrecognised as females by law, these castrated males face a very real identity crisis. Once their surgery has taken place they are no longer considered male and there is no legal framework in place to deal with them.

President of the Sudar Foundation, V Vasanthi, says: "We are fighting for human rights and against violation of those rights. Our foundation also fights for legal rights and aims to change society's view of us."

Marginalised by the public, eunuchs exist in self-contained family networks of adopted "daughters" and "mothers".

'Good students'

Priya Babu, 36, is the "mother" of this group. They come from a small knit community of 30 that live in Chengelpet, south of Madras.


"We are trying to present ourselves in such a way that society will acknowledge us. Historically we have been respected but that is no longer the case.

"Most of us in this group are well-educated and from good families but our parents would not accept us, so we had to leave."

By choosing to become a eunuch, individuals often have to turn their backs on family, friends and any status they may have previously held in society. But many say this is preferable to being forced to live against their nature.

Often they are barred from beauty parlours so this course gives them a chance to treat themselves.

"I find they are good students and hungry to learn. When they first came they would welcome me as if they were still begging but I have been teaching them to carry themselves differently and dress differently," says Nikkila.

Kalai Kani is a theatre performer and film artist also involved with the group. "I teach them to relax and use their voices more effectively, to change the tone and pitch."

'Skills'

The training seems to be paying off.

"I was very depressed before I joined the class," says Eswari, 24. "Now I feel much lighter and am looking forward to starting work."

Jamuna is 26. "I saw a life that was only begging. After learning these skills I can work hard in a respectable way. People used to tease me but now they look at me in a different way. We have become an example to the other groups."

"Her training is also useful for me," joked Priya Babu as she enjoyed the benefits of Jamuna's pedicure treatment.

But the question remains whether the general public will be as enthusiastic. Nikkila is confident that the service will be a success.

"Beauty parlours are really taking off in India and the demand is huge. Already I have a dozen clients who have said they will be happy to be treated by my pupils."

"These therapies are about using feeling to treat the clients. My next project will be to teach deaf and dumb people the same skills and get them working as well."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 280954.stm

Published: 2005/09/25 16:07:40 GMT

© BBC MMV
Click to expand...
 
Reminds me of the definition of a theatre critic as
a Eunuch in a harem.



"They know how it's done.

They see it being done every day.

But they can't do it themselves......"

-
 
It is said that one day the Sultan saw a gelding mounting a mare, and he wondered about the eunuchs in the harem. Thereafter, he ordered that 'full' castration be carried out.
 
I also read The World of the Castrati recently and it did address the issue of the boy's "free will"-- I believe it said that often the boys were asked by the "doctor" performing the surgery if they desired it to be done. Of course, I'm sure the kid's response didn't count for much even if he DID say "no"....

Also, as for Moreschi's recordings, I think that one of the reasons that his singing sounds so painful (aside from the fact that most modern listeners aren't prepared for the sound) is that by his time, there wasn't really anyone who was qualified to train a castrato the way they were trained at their height in the 1700s.
 
Moreschi was the last but there had been celebrated castrati late in the nineteenth century. One of the great might-have-beens in music was Wagner's original castrato conception of the evil Klingsor in Parsifal. He had intended the part for the great Mustafa and Klingsor's power was supposed to have derived from his self-castration. The masochistic sound-world of Parsifal is extraordinary enough as it stands - a castrato Klingsor would have made it quite mind-bending.

I think there are also suggestions that Busoni had intended to use castrati in Doktor Faust but they were obsolete by the time of its posthumous premiere. :(

I think they should be revived out of morbid curiosity, if nothing else. Are there no poor boys willing to sacrifice an ounce or two of flesh to secure artistic immortality? :twisted:
 
Definately! I feel that we're really missing out.... :mrgreen:
 
April 6-12, 2006

Battle of the Sexless

The plight of modern-day eunuchs, and why they come to Philadelphia

by Ashlea Halpern

He could've filled three Pepsi cans. Maybe three and a half.

That's how much blood Talula estimates he lost the first time he tried to castrate himself.

Life had hit an all-time low. Depression hung around his shoulders like a lead suit. His libido had spiraled out of control, and he was masturbating as many as five times a day.



So in June 1994, at 37 years of age, Talula made a decision. He'd had enough. They had to go. He stripped naked and sat in his tub, Betadine solution in one hand, an Xacto knife in the other. He doused his genitals with the antiseptic until they glowed amber, then slowly, carefully, slit open his scrotum.

No anesthesia. No alcohol. Nothing.

His fingers searched the bloody pulp for the olive-size testes that had caused him so much torment, but he was starting to feel faint.

In that moment, everything made sense: The times he and his best friend would curl one another's hair and put on makeup. The way he used to tuck his penis between his legs and admire his profile. How he would tie string around his testicles until they changed from red to purple to blue. The countless nights he prayed himself to sleep: "Please, God, please let me wake up a girl."

As the drain swirled with blood, he considered folding up his insides, taking a bath and climbing into bed. Instead, he gritted his teeth and sawed straight through his left testicle.

"I just wanted to see what they looked like," he recalls quietly. "But I'd dug too deep. I'd gone overboard."

With that realization, he wrapped the gory mess in a washcloth, bound it with duct tape and drove 18 miles to the nearest hospital. The medics in the emergency room treated Talula as an unknown—neither male nor female—but patched him up anyway and sent him for a psych evaluation.

After three years obsessing over the remaining testicle, Talula did it again.

This time he had help from a "certain friend" he had always hoped would finish the job. Talula handed the friend a syringe full of Xylocaine and a Burdizzo, a 19-inch tool used to castrate bulls. As its mighty jaws clamped around his scarred scrotum, the pain throbbed like poison darts pricking his every nerve.

And then … relief.

The certain friend, honored to have helped, bowed on his way out the front door of Talula's mobile home, located somewhere along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.

And Talula, well, he was the happiest person alive.

"It was grand," he says, in between long, audible draws on a cigarette. "I felt like Atlas, not having to carry the world."
Click to expand...

More (its a big article) and some disturbing pictures:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2006-04-06/cover.shtml

:shock:
 
Arabian Nights

There's a story in unexpurgated editions of the 1001 AND ONE NIGHTS of a eunuch who is quite sexually active, without the slightest worry of becoming a parent, and seems to be having a jolly old time.

P. S. Exactly when WERE the last 19th Century castrati created? By the time recordings were made in 1904 any surviving castrati seem to have been elderly. (I'm surprised the recordings weren't made 20 years earlier.)
 
There's a couple of tales about eunuchs but the one you mention is of the first eunuch, Bukhayt:

As Bukhayt tells us he lost only his testes, consequently his erectio et distensio penis was that of a boy before puberty and it would last as long as his heart and circulation kept sound. Hence the eunuch who preserves his penis is much prized in Zenanah where some women prefer him to the entire man on account of his long performance of the deed of kind.
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p84 from The First Popular Unexpurgated Edition of The Thousand and One Nights.
 
Re: Arabian Nights

P. S. Exactly when WERE the last 19th Century castrati created? By the time recordings were made in 1904 any surviving castrati seem to have been elderly. (I'm surprised the recordings weren't made 20 years earlier.)
Click to expand...

According to The World of the Castrati, p.235, the Church did not completely ban the practice until 1870 and Moreschi had undergone the operation around 1865.

Although recordings had been made in the Nineteenth Century, they were first experimental and, when a market of sorts evolved, the star was the machine itself - novelty numbers, hymns, marches etc. It was not until Caruso was offered £100 to record by Fred Gaisberg in Milan in 1902 that famous artists began to flock to the recording horns and the Celebrity Record was born. I think the 1904 Rome series was actually instigated to celebrate the declared Holy Year rather than the unique Moreschi.

Sales would have been very small, even so.

The earliest musical recordings I know of are the Handel Festival cylinders from 1888, recorded on location at Crystal Palace but they are very dim and distant and were never put on sale. They have however now been preserved and put online:

here

:D
 
Re: Arabian Nights

JamesWhitehead said:
"Although recordings had been made in the Nineteenth Century, they were first experimental and, when a market of sorts evolved, the star was the machine itself - novelty numbers, hymns, marches etc. It was not until Caruso was offered £100 to record by Fred Gaisberg in Milan in 1902 that famous artists began to flock to the recording horns and the Celebrity Record was born."
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Thomas Alva Edison made great efforts to record LIVING HISTORY during the early 1880s - including Florence Nightingale, Robert Browning, Sir Arthur Sullivan, various European dignitaries and so forth, all in quite listenable sound. The man who'd blown the famous trumpet charge at Balaclava reprised this sound for history.

So I am a little surprised that the castrati weren't recorded at that time. That's the only point I was attempting to make.

I think you'll also discover that that APPARENT lack of public interest in early records wasn't due to the limitations of the recording process but due instead to the HIGH PRICES of the records which put them entirely out of range for all but the wealthy. That's because there was yet no method for MASS PRODUCING cylinders. So when Mme. Extravaganza Flyointment recorded an operatic aria she had to be surrounded by a circle of 25 - 50 SEPARATE recording machines and sound horns! If 10,000 cylinders were needed, our vocalist had to record the aria 200 - 400 times, all the while belting it out at the top of her voice. That's not only going to get expensive but take an ENORMOUS toil on a professional singer's voice.

Likewise, it took DAYS for John Philip Sousa's Orchestra to record even ONE tune in sufficient quantities to supply the world market.

[Astute recording historians specializing in the early days can thus often tell which take a specific cylinder comes from. It's also suggested that these early recordings can be remastered in true Stereo by utilizing cylinders recorded on opposite sides or front and back of the artist(s).]
 
So when Mme. Extravaganza Flyointment recorded an operatic aria she had to be surrounded by a circle of 25 - 50 SEPARATE recording machines and sound horns!
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Never heard of her; what opera is she famous for?
 
Kondoru said:
"Never heard of her; what opera is she famous for?"
Click to expand...

Mea culpa, I made up Mme. Flyointment years ago as a generic opera star from the period. (Although I could add that she was often co-billed with the almost equally-famous Anglo-Italian tenor, Genuflexio Letterbox, who is himself not to be confused with his great arch-rival Sir Lochinvar Lunchbucket).
 
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