| Back blogging again | for everyone |
Sorry for the longish silence on the blog front. I've been rather busy going to and fro between London and Brussels for work. This sounds fun but the pleasure tends to wear a bit thin when you do it too often, especially because the amount of time one has to oneself in Brussels is pretty limited. Brussels isn't the world's most exciting city anyway. The food's really good and there are some nice bits (more than just the endlessly photographed Grande Place) and it's hard to dislike a city which runs to a war memorial for pigeons (Belgian army birds used for communications during the First World War, though I'm sure there's also an implied reference to the homing birds slaughtered by the German occupiers during that conflict- in a culture where pigeon racing was and remains a major working class male hobby this was a serious issue). On the other hand it had more than its fair share of 1960's redevelopment which wiped out whole districts and replaced them with office blocks and inner city dual carriageway roads which are a real risk to cross, it can be dangerous late at night (I've been mugged once, just round the corner from one of the hotels which my work sometimes books us into) and is a bit of a desert as far as special ladies are concerned. There are a couple of gay bars which do drag shows (but usually only at weekends, and the one I knew best has shut down and turned itself into another restaurant, as if Brussels needed another one of those) but that's about it. I gather there's a much livelier scene in Antwerp but that's a bit too far away to visit if you're over on a work timetable.
I'm sure there's a research topic for someone on just why it is that in Europe countries which speak a Germanic language seem to produce a lot more t-girls per head of population than ones which speak a Romance one. Obviously this is a wild generalisation; I've had some lovely evenings with French girls in Paris and there are more venues operating in that city now than there were even 10 years ago. Nevertheless I think there's something in the observation which isn't just an artefact of the fact that Scandinavia and the Netherlands were a lot quicker adapting to the Internet than, say, France. Belgium is an interesting test case- the Flemish speaking part of the country seems to sustain far more active venues than the French speaking end and Brussels is a predominantly French speaking city. If some generous research institution was prepared to fund me I'd happily devote some time to researching the topic; I'm sure there are deep rooted cultural issues here but I'm not at all sure what they might be. And if there are any Brussels- based girls reading this- please get in touch. I'd love to have some pleasant company for the lonely evenings when I'm there.
I've not been very cultural lately either. The culprit is rugby- the Six Nations Championship, to be precise. I won't bore a predominantly US audience with this-, other people's sport is a bit like other people's domestic politics, fascinating for those on the inside but rather baffling for outsiders. Scotland won at the weekend (first win against England since 2000) in a game which was a cliff hanger; very exciting for the committed but a bit short of genuine quality play. It's the most open championship for years, which is another reason for me being stuck in front of the television at weekends when I should be off improving my mind and sharpening my aesthetic senses.
The sun is out in London but it's snowing out in the countryside. I'll have to keep a careful eye out for any ducks or swans which look a bit off colour when walking across St James's Park to book some opera tickets this evening; with even the ravens in the Tower of London being brought indoors there's a distinct sense of paranoia affecting how one looks at our feathered friends at the moment.
I'm sure there's a research topic for someone on just why it is that in Europe countries which speak a Germanic language seem to produce a lot more t-girls per head of population than ones which speak a Romance one. Obviously this is a wild generalisation; I've had some lovely evenings with French girls in Paris and there are more venues operating in that city now than there were even 10 years ago. Nevertheless I think there's something in the observation which isn't just an artefact of the fact that Scandinavia and the Netherlands were a lot quicker adapting to the Internet than, say, France. Belgium is an interesting test case- the Flemish speaking part of the country seems to sustain far more active venues than the French speaking end and Brussels is a predominantly French speaking city. If some generous research institution was prepared to fund me I'd happily devote some time to researching the topic; I'm sure there are deep rooted cultural issues here but I'm not at all sure what they might be. And if there are any Brussels- based girls reading this- please get in touch. I'd love to have some pleasant company for the lonely evenings when I'm there.
I've not been very cultural lately either. The culprit is rugby- the Six Nations Championship, to be precise. I won't bore a predominantly US audience with this-, other people's sport is a bit like other people's domestic politics, fascinating for those on the inside but rather baffling for outsiders. Scotland won at the weekend (first win against England since 2000) in a game which was a cliff hanger; very exciting for the committed but a bit short of genuine quality play. It's the most open championship for years, which is another reason for me being stuck in front of the television at weekends when I should be off improving my mind and sharpening my aesthetic senses.
The sun is out in London but it's snowing out in the countryside. I'll have to keep a careful eye out for any ducks or swans which look a bit off colour when walking across St James's Park to book some opera tickets this evening; with even the ravens in the Tower of London being brought indoors there's a distinct sense of paranoia affecting how one looks at our feathered friends at the moment.
 | Three Emperors | for everyone |
I finally managed to get round to seeing the Royal Academy's "Three Emperors- China 1662-1795" exhibition. To my slight surprise it wasn't as packed as I'd feared- it was actually possible to get close to the exhibits which really need to be examined at close quarters without having to push people out the way or being barged aside myself (and the art loving fraternity have remarkably sharp elbows at times!).
The exhibition is pretty mind-blowing (and well worth a visit for anyone who happens to be in London between now and April). It covers the art of the Manchu court during the years of that dynasty's greatest power and glory with a sideways glance at the art being produced at the same time by members of the Chinese literary and cultural elites who either chose not to serve what they saw as a usurping dynasty of northern barbarians or accepted civil service posts but nevertheless cultivated nostalgia for an imagined past Golden Age. The court art blazes with colour and life, full of life and activity; the literati art is almost entirely in black and white, favouring landscapes with possibly the occasional hermit or contemplative scholar tucked away in a corner.
It's maybe a sad reflection of my own taste that, much as I appreciated the literati paintings it was the officially sponsored material which I found really fascinating. Chinese classical art aspired to a kind of timeless perfection; Manchu court commissions sought to illustrate the complex and bustling life of the Imperial court and its surroundings and offers some kind of window into that complex society. There are massive scroll paintings showing the Emperor on inspection tours of the south (recently conquered from the last survivors of the previous Ming dynasty) and of Imperial processions through the Forbidden City and Beijing beyond its walls to suburban temples. All human life is there; you can almost hear the military bands ranked along the roadside in full blast and smell the food being prepared at the roadside take-away stalls. Anther picture shows the Manchu Bannermen (the ethnically defined military units which were the core of the Empire's army) being reviewed by the Emperor. This review, however, is on ice. The Manchu regarded skating as a kind of ethnic identifier in the same way as horsemanship and archery and were more or less obliged to keep these skills up (promotion in the civil service examinations for Manchus was partially based on these physical skills, with pass marks in the literary sections set lower for Manchus than for Chinese provided they passed the physical skills section). So in addition to a parade one sees individual skaters performing in a kind of speed skating competition round a twisting course- but they also have to do target shooting with their bows as they spin round. It's a pity that never caught on more widely- combined figure and speed skating and target archery would make a great Winter Olympic sport.
Many of the paintings are collaborations between a group of Jesuit priests and local Chinese artists. The Jesuit mission to China had established itself at the Ming court in the late 16th century and (despite its role in making modern western-style guns to keep the Manchu out) managed to survive the change in dynasty. Their role was complex. They undertook astronomical observations which helped to keep the Chinese ceremonial calendar right, built and maintained western scientific instruments for the court- and acted as artists. Their religious role was controversial both in China and in Europe, where their strategy of seeking to convert the Chinese elite by adopting their dress and many of their habits began to look like apostasy to their superiors in Rome. Men like Giuseppe Castiglione (Li Shining in Chinese) were however very talented artists who worked with Chinese pupils to create a hybrid Sino-European style which, for instance, managed to merge European style perspective with the Chinese fondness for birds eye views. Castiglione's portraits of the Emperors he worked for- particularly the long-lived Qianlong Emperor- are wonderful, conveying a real sense of the personality of this highly complex and intelligent man. The Emperor clearly enjoyed being painted (and was himself a competent artist), though he also wrote a rather touching poem in old age about the experience of seeing one of Castiglione's portraits of himself as a young man and wondering who that stranger was.
Another fascinating element in the exhibition is the different personas which the Emperors had to adopt. They were (or at least chose to define themselves as) Manchu chieftains by birth and therefore had to show themselves to their Manchu subjects (who were the hereditary military elite of the Empire) in that guise. They were Emperors of China and quite deliberately sought to show that they were the legitimate heirs to every aspect of Chinese dynastic culture. They therefore had to be depicted undertaking the ceremonial duties of the Son of Heaven as well as being shown engaging in the appropriate artistic and cultural practices which went with the role. Looking to the west, however, they also claimed to be the heirs to Genghiz Khan and rulers over the Mongolian peoples of the steppes- so they also appear in the guise of a Great Khan. This Mongolian role also made them the protectors of Tibetan Buddhism (the dominant religion of the Mongols) so the Emperor would also appear in the guise of a Buddhist monk to meet the senior dignitaries of that faith. It must have been hard work keeping all these personas going simultaneously. Indeed the Yongzheng Emperor (the middle of the Three Emperors of the show’s title and the shortest lived) clearly saw the amusing side of the situation and had himself depicted in a dozen different costumes and guises ranging from a Tibetan hermit monk to a European gentleman out tiger hunting. Sadly he didn't choose to adopt any female personas.
There wasn't any obvious (or even unobvious) t-girl angle (except perhaps that a lot of girls would commit murder to get a try of the gorgeous embroidered silk dresses belonging to the Manchu Empresses which were on display) but it's a wonderful exhibition and one which I'll have to go back to again.
The exhibition is pretty mind-blowing (and well worth a visit for anyone who happens to be in London between now and April). It covers the art of the Manchu court during the years of that dynasty's greatest power and glory with a sideways glance at the art being produced at the same time by members of the Chinese literary and cultural elites who either chose not to serve what they saw as a usurping dynasty of northern barbarians or accepted civil service posts but nevertheless cultivated nostalgia for an imagined past Golden Age. The court art blazes with colour and life, full of life and activity; the literati art is almost entirely in black and white, favouring landscapes with possibly the occasional hermit or contemplative scholar tucked away in a corner.
It's maybe a sad reflection of my own taste that, much as I appreciated the literati paintings it was the officially sponsored material which I found really fascinating. Chinese classical art aspired to a kind of timeless perfection; Manchu court commissions sought to illustrate the complex and bustling life of the Imperial court and its surroundings and offers some kind of window into that complex society. There are massive scroll paintings showing the Emperor on inspection tours of the south (recently conquered from the last survivors of the previous Ming dynasty) and of Imperial processions through the Forbidden City and Beijing beyond its walls to suburban temples. All human life is there; you can almost hear the military bands ranked along the roadside in full blast and smell the food being prepared at the roadside take-away stalls. Anther picture shows the Manchu Bannermen (the ethnically defined military units which were the core of the Empire's army) being reviewed by the Emperor. This review, however, is on ice. The Manchu regarded skating as a kind of ethnic identifier in the same way as horsemanship and archery and were more or less obliged to keep these skills up (promotion in the civil service examinations for Manchus was partially based on these physical skills, with pass marks in the literary sections set lower for Manchus than for Chinese provided they passed the physical skills section). So in addition to a parade one sees individual skaters performing in a kind of speed skating competition round a twisting course- but they also have to do target shooting with their bows as they spin round. It's a pity that never caught on more widely- combined figure and speed skating and target archery would make a great Winter Olympic sport.
Many of the paintings are collaborations between a group of Jesuit priests and local Chinese artists. The Jesuit mission to China had established itself at the Ming court in the late 16th century and (despite its role in making modern western-style guns to keep the Manchu out) managed to survive the change in dynasty. Their role was complex. They undertook astronomical observations which helped to keep the Chinese ceremonial calendar right, built and maintained western scientific instruments for the court- and acted as artists. Their religious role was controversial both in China and in Europe, where their strategy of seeking to convert the Chinese elite by adopting their dress and many of their habits began to look like apostasy to their superiors in Rome. Men like Giuseppe Castiglione (Li Shining in Chinese) were however very talented artists who worked with Chinese pupils to create a hybrid Sino-European style which, for instance, managed to merge European style perspective with the Chinese fondness for birds eye views. Castiglione's portraits of the Emperors he worked for- particularly the long-lived Qianlong Emperor- are wonderful, conveying a real sense of the personality of this highly complex and intelligent man. The Emperor clearly enjoyed being painted (and was himself a competent artist), though he also wrote a rather touching poem in old age about the experience of seeing one of Castiglione's portraits of himself as a young man and wondering who that stranger was.
Another fascinating element in the exhibition is the different personas which the Emperors had to adopt. They were (or at least chose to define themselves as) Manchu chieftains by birth and therefore had to show themselves to their Manchu subjects (who were the hereditary military elite of the Empire) in that guise. They were Emperors of China and quite deliberately sought to show that they were the legitimate heirs to every aspect of Chinese dynastic culture. They therefore had to be depicted undertaking the ceremonial duties of the Son of Heaven as well as being shown engaging in the appropriate artistic and cultural practices which went with the role. Looking to the west, however, they also claimed to be the heirs to Genghiz Khan and rulers over the Mongolian peoples of the steppes- so they also appear in the guise of a Great Khan. This Mongolian role also made them the protectors of Tibetan Buddhism (the dominant religion of the Mongols) so the Emperor would also appear in the guise of a Buddhist monk to meet the senior dignitaries of that faith. It must have been hard work keeping all these personas going simultaneously. Indeed the Yongzheng Emperor (the middle of the Three Emperors of the show’s title and the shortest lived) clearly saw the amusing side of the situation and had himself depicted in a dozen different costumes and guises ranging from a Tibetan hermit monk to a European gentleman out tiger hunting. Sadly he didn't choose to adopt any female personas.
There wasn't any obvious (or even unobvious) t-girl angle (except perhaps that a lot of girls would commit murder to get a try of the gorgeous embroidered silk dresses belonging to the Manchu Empresses which were on display) but it's a wonderful exhibition and one which I'll have to go back to again.
| Medieval Drag? | for everyone |
One of my all time favourite places is Siena in Tuscany. It's a magical place, which still feels like a medieval city (minus the smells, of course) in many ways. The colourful banners of the contrade (the 17 city districts which compete in the bare back horse races which take place round the great Piazza Pubblico twice a year) hanging from houses and the sight and sound of youthful contrade members practicing their drumming and banner throwing give some general sense of what it might have felt like to live in a city where these districts were part of the building blocks of government. The architecture is wonderful and Siena produced some of the most beautiful art of the early Italian Renaissance- art sometimes rather overlooked by a historiography which is dominated by Florence, Siena's great rival.
One of the highlights of Sienese art is to be found inside the Palazzo Pubblico, the massive 13th/14th century city hall which still serves as the headquarters of the city government today. This is the so-called "Sala della Pace" or Room of Peace; the room in which the governing council of Siena met in the middle ages. It gets its name from the frescoed decorations. These mix allegorical figures of good and bad government (the former naturally triumphant- though things weren't as simple in real life) with depictions of an ideal city (which is nevertheless clearly Siena) under good and bad government. The first is a beautiful depiction of an early 14th century city and its surrounding countryside as it should ideally be- the markets well provisioned, the fields fertile, workers busy at their trades or in the fields as the elite go out hunting. The second, less well preserved, is the opposite- the fields devastated by warfare, the city torn by civil strife with the dead bodies in the streets and the houses of political exiles being torn down.
This group of dancers is bang in the middle of the city of good government. They perform a circle dance to the beat of a tambourine and on very close inspection seem each to be carrying a thread which links the group. Their open mouths suggest that they're singing. They've been interpreted as a visual embodiment of harmony or even as the Muses (though it's not clear which dancer is which Muse and it would be a rather unusual depiction of them)
And, it' been argued, they're all men. The argument put forward by a serious academic a few years ago is that women wouldn't have been allowed to perform in public in this way. It's further suggested that the dresses they appear to be wearing aren't dresses at all but a form of overmantel (and some of them do indeed seem to be wearing additional clothing under their costumes). This marks them as members of one of the male theatrical troupes which (it is claimed) existed in the Italian cities to perform plays, usually with religious themes.
I'm not entirely sure I buy this explanation. Medieval theatrical performances did cast men in female roles. There are wonderful city accounts from Coventry (if I remember correctly) relating to the costuming of the actor who was going to play Pilate's wife in the local play cycle- he held out successfully for the medieval equivalent of a designer frock. Since Pilate's wife is portrayed as sex-starved and man-crazy it's not hard to believe the performer in question may have camped it up massively. It doesn't seem to have been universal practice for men to take female roles, however, even in those parts of the world like England and Flanders where there's a fair bit of surviving documentation (the theological implications of casting a man as the Virgin Mary might have been an issue- though Noah's wife usually looks like a natural drag role in the surviving plays). There doesn't seem to be the same level of documentation on Italy- or if there is it hasn't been studied in the same detail and the evidence base for the theatre troupes in question seems to be rather slender. There are enough accounts of medieval festivities from Italy which include street dancing by what are described as troupes of maidens to cast some doubt on the argument that women were never allowed to perform in public.
I'm going to be in Siena later this year and I'll have another look at the painting, though I doubt if doing so will settle the argument even in my mind. For all my doubts, however, there's a bit of me which would really like to think that harmony, the social virtue Italian city dwellers valued so highly (perhaps because it was so conspicuously uncommon in their lives), could be personified in the very centre of Sienese government by a drag troupe.
| Early operatic gender bending.... | for everyone |
Over the weekend I finally had time to get really into one of my Christmas presents. This is a CD by the Italian mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli called "Opera Proibita". The music is wonderful- real early 18th century show off stuff by composers like Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti and Caldara and Bartoli is a specialist in this repertoire so it's a gorgeous musical experience if, like me, you've a fondness for that style of music.
There is however a story behind the pieces being performed on the CD which may be of some interest to those who share my love for special ladies. All of them were written in Rome in the first third of the 18th century. From 1701, however, opera had been banned in the Eternal City by order of the Pope (who was secular as well as spiritual ruler over the city and its surroundings) due to concerns about its innate sinfulness in a world marked by warfare (the War of the Spanish Succession had just broken out) and natural disasters (Rome had suffered a couple of minor earthquakes which had caused no serious casualties but scared people plenty). Unfortunately, there were a lot of opera fans, even (especially) among the cardinals of the church. The ban was therefore circumvented by writing pieces on allegorical or religious subjects, calling them "oratorios" and staging them in semi-private theatres in the palaces of the Roman nobility.
In addition, however, there was an even longer standing ban on female performers appearing on stage in Rome. This went back to 1588 and there was no serious and sustained attempt to circumvent it. As a result the parts in these oratorios were sung by men- including all the female roles. The repertoire which Ms Bartolli performs with such finesse was in fact written for "castrati"- male singers who had undergone painful surgery in their teens to stop their voices breaking.
Castrati were the great stars of 18th century Italian opera, with name recognition and financial rewards on a par with those commanded by modern big name tenors or sopranos. It's one of the odder cultural realities of that age that just about every major heroic male role in Italian opera (which meant just about all operas written and performed outside France) up to the last quarter of the century was written for a castrato. Clearly elite audiences thrilled to the vocal possibilities which these singers offered (judging from the music written for them many of them must have been quite spectacularly accomplished with massive vocal ranges) without being too bothered about such issues as a massive predominance of high voices in performances or the suspensions of disbelief involved in accepting a castrated male as the central love object in the plot.
Castrati were however usually defined as clearly "male" figures. While (especially in England) there was a degree of gender ambiguity about them, they normally sang heroic male parts and some of them had off-stage reputations as serial seducers of women (not all the "castration" techniques used involved total removal of male genitalia and a castrato could be an ideal participant for, say, an adulterous relationship since the female partner ran no risks of pregnancy). In Rome however (and possibly some other parts of Italy at some times, though I haven't been able to check this) castrati sang female roles. Indeed, given that the allegorical personifications who bulked large in the oratorios which were staged in Rome were predominantly female there were probably more female roles than male ones around. Religious subjects could produce some wonderfully complex gender bendings. One of the oratorios which Bartolli draws on involves a saintly female who masquerades as a male hermit only to have a woman fall for her- and both parts would of course have been sung by castrati. Roman castrati also appear to have been more "feminine" off stage- at least a lot of them seem to have ended up as girlfriends of the nobility and senior ecclesiastics (what was known in 18th century Rome as "the noble sin").
Castrati went out of fashion quite rapidly in the late 18th century (Mozart wrote some parts for castrati but he was more or less the last major composer to do so give or take some Rossini parts). In Rome however the tradition continued. The French author Balzac created a short story about 1830 set in Rome in which a young French visitor to Rome, apparently blissfully unaware of the local customs (which rather strains credibility), falls for the beautiful star singer in a Roman concert and gets roughed up by the servants of her noble lover for his pains before he discovers that she's actually a castrato. The Papal chapel continued to employ castrati until the fall of Rome to the armies of the Italian monarchy in 1870 and even some way beyond though Italian unification and the enforcement of child protection legislation largely wiped out supply. There are a tiny number of very crackly early recordings dating from around 1900 made by retired members of the choir but these only give the palest impression of what one of the great performers of earlier ages might have been capable of.
How the castrati themselves saw their gender identity isn't clear. There aren't any memoirs that I'm aware of- at least not ones which can be reliably attributed to any of the star castrati of the age- and even if any did exist I imagine they'd have discussed these matters in very coded terms. Young singers were chosen for castration on the basis of their vocal abilities (often by people like entrepreneurial choirmasters) rather than any gender issue they may have had. Their families were often supportive of the operation, if only on mercenary grounds. I'm not enough of an expert to know whether, for instance, the castrati who sang female roles in Rome ever went on tour to places where they'd have been expected to confine themselves to male ones. It would be nice to think that there may have been cases in which vocal talent and the gender blurring implicit in the whole castrato phenomenon worked happily together for an individual but that may be a rather romantic view.
The music written for them is fabulous, though......
There is however a story behind the pieces being performed on the CD which may be of some interest to those who share my love for special ladies. All of them were written in Rome in the first third of the 18th century. From 1701, however, opera had been banned in the Eternal City by order of the Pope (who was secular as well as spiritual ruler over the city and its surroundings) due to concerns about its innate sinfulness in a world marked by warfare (the War of the Spanish Succession had just broken out) and natural disasters (Rome had suffered a couple of minor earthquakes which had caused no serious casualties but scared people plenty). Unfortunately, there were a lot of opera fans, even (especially) among the cardinals of the church. The ban was therefore circumvented by writing pieces on allegorical or religious subjects, calling them "oratorios" and staging them in semi-private theatres in the palaces of the Roman nobility.
In addition, however, there was an even longer standing ban on female performers appearing on stage in Rome. This went back to 1588 and there was no serious and sustained attempt to circumvent it. As a result the parts in these oratorios were sung by men- including all the female roles. The repertoire which Ms Bartolli performs with such finesse was in fact written for "castrati"- male singers who had undergone painful surgery in their teens to stop their voices breaking.
Castrati were the great stars of 18th century Italian opera, with name recognition and financial rewards on a par with those commanded by modern big name tenors or sopranos. It's one of the odder cultural realities of that age that just about every major heroic male role in Italian opera (which meant just about all operas written and performed outside France) up to the last quarter of the century was written for a castrato. Clearly elite audiences thrilled to the vocal possibilities which these singers offered (judging from the music written for them many of them must have been quite spectacularly accomplished with massive vocal ranges) without being too bothered about such issues as a massive predominance of high voices in performances or the suspensions of disbelief involved in accepting a castrated male as the central love object in the plot.
Castrati were however usually defined as clearly "male" figures. While (especially in England) there was a degree of gender ambiguity about them, they normally sang heroic male parts and some of them had off-stage reputations as serial seducers of women (not all the "castration" techniques used involved total removal of male genitalia and a castrato could be an ideal participant for, say, an adulterous relationship since the female partner ran no risks of pregnancy). In Rome however (and possibly some other parts of Italy at some times, though I haven't been able to check this) castrati sang female roles. Indeed, given that the allegorical personifications who bulked large in the oratorios which were staged in Rome were predominantly female there were probably more female roles than male ones around. Religious subjects could produce some wonderfully complex gender bendings. One of the oratorios which Bartolli draws on involves a saintly female who masquerades as a male hermit only to have a woman fall for her- and both parts would of course have been sung by castrati. Roman castrati also appear to have been more "feminine" off stage- at least a lot of them seem to have ended up as girlfriends of the nobility and senior ecclesiastics (what was known in 18th century Rome as "the noble sin").
Castrati went out of fashion quite rapidly in the late 18th century (Mozart wrote some parts for castrati but he was more or less the last major composer to do so give or take some Rossini parts). In Rome however the tradition continued. The French author Balzac created a short story about 1830 set in Rome in which a young French visitor to Rome, apparently blissfully unaware of the local customs (which rather strains credibility), falls for the beautiful star singer in a Roman concert and gets roughed up by the servants of her noble lover for his pains before he discovers that she's actually a castrato. The Papal chapel continued to employ castrati until the fall of Rome to the armies of the Italian monarchy in 1870 and even some way beyond though Italian unification and the enforcement of child protection legislation largely wiped out supply. There are a tiny number of very crackly early recordings dating from around 1900 made by retired members of the choir but these only give the palest impression of what one of the great performers of earlier ages might have been capable of.
How the castrati themselves saw their gender identity isn't clear. There aren't any memoirs that I'm aware of- at least not ones which can be reliably attributed to any of the star castrati of the age- and even if any did exist I imagine they'd have discussed these matters in very coded terms. Young singers were chosen for castration on the basis of their vocal abilities (often by people like entrepreneurial choirmasters) rather than any gender issue they may have had. Their families were often supportive of the operation, if only on mercenary grounds. I'm not enough of an expert to know whether, for instance, the castrati who sang female roles in Rome ever went on tour to places where they'd have been expected to confine themselves to male ones. It would be nice to think that there may have been cases in which vocal talent and the gender blurring implicit in the whole castrato phenomenon worked happily together for an individual but that may be a rather romantic view.
The music written for them is fabulous, though......
| A further thought on castrati and Rome. | for everyone |
It has just struck me that if there had ever been a living historical model for the eponymous heroine of Puccini's "Tosca" then she'd have had to be a castrato in order to have the public profile as a performer in Rome which she clearly has. After all the action takes place in Papal Rome around 1800 with the Napoleonic armies bearing down from the north- and if anything the papal regime would have got more conservative after the short-lived Roman Republic two or three years earlier. No wonder Scarpia's clearly none too happy that Cavaradossi is putting her face on a painting of the Virgin- though since he spends most of the second act trying to get her into his bed before she stabs him to death, the head of the Papal Secret Police clearly has his own gender issues.
This puts a whole new complexion on Puccini's opera. I wonder what would happen if a director decided to act on this historical titbit and cast a production accordingly with, say, a counter tenor singing the heroine's role (no doubt with a certain number of transpositions to bring the part within that register). No doubt all hell would be let loose- a bit like what happened when the artistic director of the reconstructed Elizabethan-style Globe theatre in London decided to cast himself as Cleopatra in "Anthony and Cleopatra" a few years back on the grounds that the role would originally have been played by a genetic male. The reviews of that production were mixed, though (predictably) I liked it. Giving "Tosca" that sort of going over would be fun but I don't suppose it will ever happen- the Sopranos Union would make sure that any director who dared would be blackballed from every opera house in the world.
This puts a whole new complexion on Puccini's opera. I wonder what would happen if a director decided to act on this historical titbit and cast a production accordingly with, say, a counter tenor singing the heroine's role (no doubt with a certain number of transpositions to bring the part within that register). No doubt all hell would be let loose- a bit like what happened when the artistic director of the reconstructed Elizabethan-style Globe theatre in London decided to cast himself as Cleopatra in "Anthony and Cleopatra" a few years back on the grounds that the role would originally have been played by a genetic male. The reviews of that production were mixed, though (predictably) I liked it. Giving "Tosca" that sort of going over would be fun but I don't suppose it will ever happen- the Sopranos Union would make sure that any director who dared would be blackballed from every opera house in the world.
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