NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/music/classica/19248

Text File | 1992-12-22 | 1.7 KB | 38 lines

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Path: sparky!uunet!noc.near.net!news.cs.brandeis.edu!max!jacob
From: [e-mail] ( )
Subject: male alti, counter-tenors, castrati, and so on
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Organization: Brandeis University Math Department
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 01:21:24 GMT
Lines: 27

1. is a so called "male alto" the same thing as a "countertenor"?
   if not, what is the difference?
   (there was a post from russia about 3 months ago mentioning
   an exceptional "male alto" from over there -- i was wondering,
   a bit late maybe,if it's the same thing as a counter-tenor)

2. is falsetto always used to some extent by countertenors?
   (as opposed to only using full head voice, which if i'm not
   mistaken rarelly goes as high)

3. how (to what purpose?) did castrati start to become "available"
   in italy around 1600? clearly the answer cannot be "to sing opera"
   as opera was just begining. for example the role of nero in monteverdi's
   "incoronazione," one of the first operas, was to be sung by a castrato
   (unless it was sung by a woman which i believe was not the case,) so
   for monteverdi to write such a part, singers able to sing that part must
   have been *already* available. on the other hand neither madrigals nor
   masses require castrati, so?

   (note that the "production" of castrati was *always* a fairly illegal
   affair in all of italy -- read the excerpt from burney in strunk's book --
   in other words opera 1600-1800 rested on a very illegal activity,
   punishable by death in some cases, a bit like if the major popular
   music stars of this era were, say, all children who'd been kidnapped and
   sold in slavely)