castrato
Speech parts
1. castrato - Noun
2. castrato - Adjective
Meaning
A male person castrated for the purpose of improving his voice for singing; an artificial, or male, soprano.
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
Antonyms
Hypernyms
Related terms
Derivatives
Anagrams
Examples
Cornetts were used to reinforce the human voice in choirs, and many commentators suggested that the sound of a well-played cornett, heard at a distance, could be mistaken for a "choice castrato ".
In Rome in 1762 he attended a performance at which the prima donna was a castrato, "the favourite pathic" of Cardinal Borghese, who dined every evening with his protector.
Neuvième et Dixième époques: 1852–1878, «Avant-scène opéra Paris», N° 65 (supplement), 1984 ( Adelaide Borghi-Mamo performed the castrato role of Armando and Rosina PencoSUBST that of Palmide).
Listening to the only surviving recordings of a castrato (see below), one can hear that the lower part of the voice sounds like a "super-high" tenor, with a more falsetto -like upper register above that.
He mentions meeting an abbé whom he took for a girl in disguise, only later discovering that "she" was a famous castrato.
The last great operatic castrato was Giovanni Battista Velluti (1781–1861), who performed the last operatic castrato role ever written: Armando in Il crociato in Egitto by Meyerbeer (Venice, 1824).