Twentieth-century Farinelli

Musical Quarterly

Volumn 81, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 180-189

  Harris, Ellen T ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62449121042     PISSN: 00274631     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/mq/81.2.180     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. In 1734 the rival Opera of the Nobility performed an adaptation of Handel's Ottone, with many of Handel's former singers reprising their original roles. The castrato Senesino performed the title role, and the soprano Cuzzoni re-created the leading lady's role of Teofane. Farinelli was assigned the subsidiary part of Adelberto, which was transformed in character and enlarged (probably by the librettist Rolli and the composer Porpora). Five of Adelberto's seven arias were taken from other Handelian operas. See Winton Dean and Merrill J. Knapp, Handel's Operas: 1704-1726 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 441
2. for a copy of the libretto, see Ellen T. Harris, The Librettos of Handel's Operas, vol. 13 (New York: Garland, 1989), 112-73
3. Thomas Gilbert, The World Unmask'd (London, 1738)
4. See Friedrich Chrysander, Händel Gesellschaft, vol. 48 (1894), 210-43
5. Katherine Bergeron, "The Castrato as History," Cambridge Opera Journal 8 (1996): 167-84
6. See Enid Rhodes Peschel and Richard E. Peschel, Opera Quarterly 4 (1986-87): 21-38. "Our opinion is that the great castrati had a complete castration and, consequently, could not have had any normal male sexual function. Stories about their sexual relationships with women must be viewed with skepticism. The lack of androgens that permitted them to have their infantile vocal cords and extraordinary voices also made them have an infantile penis, a lack of beard growth, and a grotesque-looking body characterized by a eunuchoid appearance and/or womanlike features, including breasts. All these results of pre-pubertal castration (and primary hypogonadism) are consistent with a lack of male sexual function. The notion that various castrati had natural sex lives with women is, in our judgment, a hoax" (33)
7. See Bergeron, especially 174f and 183f, for a further discussion of this point and additional references. Sony's own description of the morphing process is available on the Web: 〈http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/misc/farinelli. htm〉
8. The main Sony-Farinelli site (still open as of February 1997) is 〈http://www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyClassics/farinelli/farinelli. html〉
9. This Web site can be opened from the Sony main site on Farinelli (see n. 17) or directly at 〈http://www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyClassics/ farinelli/about/fabout. html〉
10. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987)
11. The Prompter 7 (4 Dec. 1734)
12. as quoted in Thomas McGeary, "'Warbling Eunuchs': Opera, Gender, and Sexuality on the London Stage, 1705-1742," Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research 7 (1992): 12. Other contemporary reactions to opera in London quoted in this article refer to its feminizing effect on men
13. There are various discussions of this issue, none of which lay out a similar list of examples as here, but some of which discuss single uses in depth. See, for example, Thomas Childs Cochran, The Uses of History (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1973)
14. on economic forecasting; Richard E. Neustadt, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (New York: Free Press, 1986), on didactic history
15. and Barbara Tuchman, "Is History a Guide to the Future?" in Practicing History (New York: Ballantine Books, 1982), 247-55, for an argument against the use of history as predictive