Castrati singers as a musical and sociocultural phenomenon. Exhumation of Farinelli

Abstract

The article is devoted to a rare topic – the art of castrati singers, a vibrant musical and social phenomenon. This issue remained in the shadows for a long time. However, if we judge the skill of castrati singers by what their contemporaries described, today's most excellent vocal performers only barely come close to castrati’s extraordinary capabilities. It is natural that the best of the best castrati singers, the true stars of the stage, were called Great then. And we must have maximum information about everything connected with them. But why Farinelli? Notably, there are people who specialize in Farinelli studies, and there are quite a lot of them; they form a whole movement in musicology. Certainly, there are those who study Caff arelli, Tenducci, Vellutti… But all this remains within the framework of disparate experience, which does not allow us to talk about Caff arellists, Tenduccists, Veluttists. The article examines a page related to the history of Farinelli, namely, the story of his exhumation. This is a rare approach to the analysis of both musical and sociocultural phenomena. Meanwhile, such a turn can be a vivid illustration of the history of bell canto, and the materials of the article can be a striking addition to the framework of the courses “History of Vocal Art” and “History of Foreign Music”.