Opera II

In my previous post, I discussed the presence of opera in an eighteenth-century society that was otherwise officially hostile to influence from Catholic countries, dwelling on the perception of opera as a foreign, elitist art-form and the high salaries paid to opera stars compared to the far lower ones paid to British actors. These complaints can both be grouped into nationalist objections to foreign success on the London stage. Today, I want to discuss a related, but more abstract, grievance directed at opera: castrati, and what their popularity might suggest about expectations of manliness. I feel that this post lacks some structure and depth but I'm using it as an opportunity to flesh out some of my thoughts.

Castrati were the main stars of opera: from the late seventeenth century, the majority of male opera leads were written to be sung by a castrato.  The popularity of castrati meant that many became celebrities in their own right off the stage: we hear of Nicolini, Valentini, Senesino, and especially Farinelli enjoying the companionship of the nobility. The call from the theatre box of "One God, one Farinelli!" is infamous. However, such adoration had its seedier side. Popular mythology had it that women would view castrati as a viable option for sex without the potential to get pregnant. As a result, gossip, rumour, and satire suggested that castrati had numerous affairs and were frequent victims of syphilis.

But were the rumours about castrati true? Unfortunately, the process of castrating a young man for the purpose of preserving his beautiful voice has not been well recorded. From what we know of castration today, it usually inhibits sexual desire and ability to perform (the penis of a man who has undergone preadolescent castration usually remains infantile), thus making heterosexual copulation unlikely. It is possible that only a semi-castration took place, although this would be to the detriment of the beautiful voice associated with the castrato. Thus, either castration was total, and gossip surrounding castrati was exaggerated, or castration was only in part, and there was some truth in the rumours.

As men, castrati were unusual physical specimens. They had

more developed subcutaneous fat than in the normal male, with fat deposits localized in the hips, buttocks, and breast areas (some castrati developed large fatty breasts that looked like female breasts); fatty deposits that occurred sometimes in the lateral portions of the eyelids, creating facial distortions; and skin that often appeared swollen and unwrinkled…[T]heir arms and legs are disproportionately long relative to the torso… (Enid Rhodes Peschel and Richard E. Peschel, "Medical Insights into the Castrati in Opera," p. 582.)

Castrati were also unable to grow facial hair, which coupled with their high-pitched voices may have increased perceptions of them as boyish or feminine, although fashionable men of the 1720s and '30s were usually clean-shaven anyway. Contemporary caricatures of Farinelli especially emphasise his long limbs, as seen in this 1734 etching (Farinelli is the central figure, towering over the other two).

Castrati thus represented everything that was antithetical to eighteenth-century upper-class manly ideals: they were foreign, Catholic, often came from a lower class, drew their income from a frivolous art-form, had physical features more commonly associated with women, and lacked the 'proper' genitalia.  By all rights they should have been outcasts, but instead they enjoyed wealth and popularity with the aristocracy, and were rumoured to be sexually gregarious.

The adulation of castrati came at an awkward time for ideas about manliness. The Restoration rake, who drank, gambled, whored, and duelled, was reviled for being immoral; as his behaviours fell out of fashion, by the 1710s he also came to be associated with other old-fashioned and dangerous ideologies, like Catholicism and Jacobitism. Fops and beaus - with their delicate manners and love of aesthetic perfection - maintained their place in society, but they had always been criticised for their effeminacy and laughed at on the stage and in writing. The 'ideal' aristocratic man of the early eighteenth century thus developed consciously somewhere in-between, but also in opposition to, the immoral rake and the frivolous fop. This new man - for which, tellingly, I haven't been able to find a generic name or societal role for him to fulfil in the same way that 'rake' and 'fop' work - had to be mannerly and well-informed without sacrificing himself to fashion; he had to be practical and good-humoured without giving himself up to the pleasures of the world. By the 1720s, both rake and fop were perceived as pseudo-Catholic pleasure-seekers - it was therefore galling to see the castrato, associated with the same qualities, to triumph on the London stage. In the final post in this series, I will discuss reactions to castrati on the stage, primarily through the use of burlesque ballad operas and afterpieces.