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The Rise and Fall of Castrati

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The Rise and Fall of Castrati The Rise and Fall of Castrati Victor Ginsburgh ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles and CORE, Université catholique de Louvain Luc Leruth International Monetary Fund April 2017 ECARES working paper 2017-15 ECARES ULB - CP 114/04 50, F.D. Roosevelt Ave., B-1050 Brussels BELGIUM www.ecares.org The Rise and Fall of Castrati* Victor Ginsburgh ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles and CORE, Université catholique de Louvain Luc Leruth International Monetary Fund April 2017 Abstract Castrato singers appeared in the Western World during the 16th century. They were needed by the Church for reasons that we shall discuss, and their skills were such that opera composers also decided to use them. This created a major demand for their services. Castrati reigned supreme at the Opera until the mid-19th century and continued to sing in Italian churches until 1913. The last one died in Rome in 1922. The paper shows that economic incentives played a key role in explaining the rise and fall of this remarkable group of singers. JEL codes: D10, J2, N83, Z11, Z12 Keywords: castrated singers, singing in the Church, opera * Sharon Gerstel’s references on Byzantine castrati were extremely useful. She made us aware of the relation between the type of architecture of churches (high and low ceilings) and the type of chanting (high- or low- pitched singing). We are also grateful to Gani Aldachef, Christine Demol, Catherine Massip, Henri Van Hulst and Sheila Weyers for comments and suggestions. Early discussions with Hector Bianciotti (†) are also acknowledged. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the IMF, its management or its Board of Directors. The usual disclaimer applies. 1 1. Introduction Castration is already present in very old myths, such as in Hesiod’s Theogony. In Egypt, Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, emasculated Set who had killed his brother. In India, the tradition of castration goes back to Krishna, a God who could turn into a woman if required by circumstances. Castration also goes a long way back in China (where the last eunuch of the imperial court died in 1996), in the Middle East, in Athens and Rome among the early Christians, and in Russia.1 In some places, the practice continued to exist until a fairly recent past. Mamy (1998, p. 8) reports that, in 1871, a Russian sect counted about 5,400 castrati. Some were still living in Romania after the Second World War and today’s eunuchs in India (called hijras and known for their artistic dispositions, including singing) proudly claim their Krishna heritage (see Jaffrey, 1996). With the exception of the hijras however, castration was essentially motivated by religious, mystic or pagan principles, not by music. The first historically reported story of castration for musical purposes in Europe seems to have taken place in the beginning of the third century A.D. when Plautinus, minion of Emperor Septimius Severus, castrated one hundred young free Romans (not slaves) in his own palace so that his daughter Plautilla could educate them as singers and dancers (Haböck, 1927, pp. 73-74). The notion that castration would preserve young boys’ voices has thus quite ancient roots.2 For very long, the Church condemned the use of castrates as singers, and references to them are rare before the 13th century. The respect surrounding eunuchs in Byzantium3 may explain 1 For a short introduction about where castration was common, see Erlich (1991, pp. 11-19). 2 See Jenkins (1998) for a description of the effects of castration on voices. 3 Eunuchs were very important in Byzantium and, according to Moran (2002, p. 100), “the state could not have functioned without them.” 2 why they were used to sing in the Orthodox Church, where it was believed that their chants were coming from God and the angels: Chanting of the psalms in antiphony with two choirs, was “first introduced in the second century by St Ignatius of Antioch, who was inspired by a vision of angels celebrating the Holy Trinity in alternating choirs” (Moran, 2002, p.101). In the early 5th century, Brison, a eunuch choirmaster in the service of Empress Eudoxia, organized nocturnal hymn-singing during the patriarchate of John Chrysostom (Moran, 2002, p. 101). Haböck (1927, p. 137) reports that the chief eunuch of the ruling Empress was training other eunuchs, imported from Greece and Slavic countries, to perform hymns. Under the rule of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch during the 12th century, castrati were performing in all Oriental catholic churches (Mamy, 1998, p. 14). They completely disappeared after the sack of Constantinople by the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade, however, which led to the introduction of the Latin rite in the Hagia Sophia church. Castrati had to flee, and their use in Orthodox churches became limited to Greece (Thessaloniki, Mount Athos among other places) and in monasteries in southern Italy and Sicily (Moran, pp. 108, 110).4 When the papacy (at the time, the role of the Pope was carried out by the bishop of Rome) moved to Italy in 1257, two hundred years after the schism of the churches of the Roman and the Byzantine Empires, some of the customs and traditions acquired in Byzantium, in particular chants in high-pitched voices, moved with them to Italy and, eventually, to Rome. At first, women could sing the parts but rules against them singing or even speaking in churches were soon more strictly enforced. As castration was ‘forbidden,’ young boys had to perform the soprano musical parts in choirs. But using young boys turned out to be an 4 Note that there seems to be a contradiction. Monasteries and cloisters have low vaults and domes, and there is more need for lower registers which stay close to ground level rather than high-pitched voices. High-pitched voices perform better in buildings with high vaults (Gothic churches) that allow voices to rise up. This was the case in Hagia Sophia, but not so much in monasteries (Gerstel, 2017, Fricano, 2015). On March 24, 2017, Graeme Boone from the music department at Ohio State University gave a seminar at Columbia which goes in the same direction. The title of his talk was Blurred lines: Late medieval counterpoint and architectural design. (http://music.columbia.edu/events/graeme-boone-on-late-medieval-polyphony-and-architecture). 3 expensive endeavour as few were ready to embrace a short (until their voice would break) and demanding career. This limited supply, while demand remained high. The situation was no longer sustainable. The appearance of castrati, partly reflecting economic incentives, changed the business model. Economic motives also contributed to the end of their reign as the southern part of Italy, from where most of the castrati were originating at the time, became richer. But there were also other reasons: the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck changed the content and performing of operatic works; the Church as well as opera fans started to feel embarrassed by castration; Napoleon banned it after he conquered Italy; and the quality of music schools deteriorated (Mamy, 1998, pp. 104-105). The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we show how castrati provided a cheap and in many ways attractive alternative to young boys singing in churches. In Section 3, we discuss how economic incentives contributed to the rise of castrati in operas as well. Section 4 is devoted to the fall of castrati, and Section 5 concludes. 2. The 16th Century Rise of Castrati in the Church For long, the rules about women in the Church, although strict, were met with resistance and not really implemented.6 The Ecclesiasticus had suggested not to use “the company of a woman that is a singer, lest haply thou be caught by her attempts,” and it clearly stated that “with singing, women sleep no lest, they burn thee with their mouths.” In one of his letters to the Corinthians, Saint Paul had added his own touch by asking them to prevent women from 6 According to the New Grove Dictionary (Grove, 2004, vol. 5, p. 804), it is not fully clear that early Christians excluded women. Their exclusion started when “lay congregations ceased to join in the singing and an exclusively male clergy assumed the control of church music.” 4 even speaking in churches.7 After the 1257 schism however, as the Papacy moved to Europe, these rules were more firmly implemented. With girls and women silent, high-pitched singing in Italy was performed by boys educated in schools created by the Popes. This eventually led to the well-known Schola Cantorum and the Choir of the Sistine Chapel. The use of young boys or of Spanish falsettos (male singers expert at singing high notes)8 extended to the rest of Christian Europe during the Middle Ages. These young boys and trained falsettos were sought with much effort and money by churches and nobility from all countries. Soon, this practice became unsustainable. First, suitable young boys mostly came from well-to-do families, since their talent had to be tested and confirmed by music teachers who would then be able to recommend them to a church. Convincing rich youngsters to join church choirs and work hard on becoming good musicians was not easy, and well-off families often had better plans for their children. An example of this can be found in a letter quoted by Auda (1930, pp. 49-51): “The imperial court organist Michel de Bock was charged by his sovereign to find singers in the Low Countries. One of the younger altos [a certain Adrien, son of Lenyn d’Enghien, whom he had discovered] did not want to come.
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