|
Farinelli portrait
of Farinelli by
Some 200 years after his death, one of the
greatest singers
of any age, Farinelli, returned to the spotlight (played by Italian
actor Stefano
Dionisi) in Gerard Corbiau's 1994 film, Farinelli voce Regina. (The title seems to be a deliberate, bizarre
pun on the real Farinelli's nickname "Singer to the Kings". Voce
regina does mean "regal voice", yes, but in Italian and the
original French the title may also be read as "Queen of Singers".
Since Farinelli was a eunuch soprano, and since we all know what a
"queen" is— well...ha-ha... The film centers on the singer's rivalry
with and antipathy
towards the German composer Haendel when both were in London in the mid
1730s
trying to organize competing opera companies. The interesting thing
about the
film is the soundtrack. Since they don't make castrati anymore,
the
filmmaker had to rely on the audio wizardry of the
French IRCAM (Institut de
Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique) to splice together and otherwise unify the
voices
of male
counter-tenor Derek Lee Ragin and female coloratura Ewa Mallas
Godlewska
such that the finished product sounded as if it came from a single
voice of
incredible power and range. It works, although the lip-synching could
be
better. The film also perpetuates the claim that
young
Broschi couldn't remember having been castrated because he had been too
young
at the time and, thus, believed his brother that the operation had been
done to
treat a horse-riding accident at a very young age. (Children meant to
become castrati
were
generally castrated at the age of 8 to 10.) There are a few books about Farinelli. One
is Farinell
the Castrato, by Andrée Corbiau
(presumably related to the director of the film) from 1994.There is,
also from
1994, Farinelli, mémoires d'un castrat
by Marc David, and
from 1943 Farinelli, le chanteur
des
Rois. There is, from
1960, a private
printing of Farinelli
in Spain by Anthony Richards that looks
particularly interesting
(though I
have not read it) since it covers the most fascinating period in
Farinelli's
life, the time he spent in Spain, the years when he sang the depressed
king of
Spain to sleep every night. There are a few others, as well. Unlike many male children
with good voices—whose parents
chose to have them castrated as a way out of poverty—Carlo Boschi was
from a
well-off family. He was born in 1705 in Andrea, a small town in Puglia
in what
was then the Kingdom of Naples. He was castrated and sent to Naples to
study
music. (Alternately, sent to Naples to
be castrated and study music. I don't know.) He studied with Porpora,
one of
the most important members of the so-called "Neapolitan School,"
which has given us A. Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Piccinni, Cimarosa, etc. He
first performed at the age of 15 in a work composed by
Porpora called Angelica e Medoro.
There was nothing noteworthy
about the
event (or the opera) except that Farinelli met another former
child-prodigy who
was living and working in Naples and who was destined to revitalize
text in
Italian opera and eventually be regarded as the one of the greatest
names in
Italian literature of the 1700s, Metastasio. The singer and the
librettist/poet
became such fast and lifelong friends that they commonly referred to
the other
as "brother". Farinelli sang in Venice in
1728 and his career took off. He
toured Europe and became known as "Singer to the Kings".
In his History of Music, Charles
Burney (1726-1814) recounts an episode during a rehearsal in London
when the
musicians in the orchestra could barely concentrate on their parts,
amazed, as
they were, to distraction by the power and brilliance of Farinelli's
voice. In
1737 he accepted an offer to go to Spain and be the private singer for
that
particular king, Phillip V, an
individual beset by severe bouts of depression and who was apparently
greatly
helped by the sound of Farinelli's voice. They say that Farinelli sang
the same
six songs at bedtime to Phillip, night
after night, for ten years. Thus, Farinelli gave up the public life of
an
acclaimed singer and devoted himself for the next 25 years to service
to the
Spanish throne, first Philip and then Ferdinand IV. Farinelli was the
Private
Counsellor to Phillip, and in such good grace with the monarch that his
influence was believed to extend beyond the musical and general
cultural life
of Spain into diplomacy and affairs of state. Eventually, Farinelli was
knighted. When Charles III, first
Bourbon King of Naples abdicated to
return to Spain in 1759, Farinelli left and returned to Italy to live
in
Bologne. His generosity was proverbial; he left his estate to servants
and those
relatives who had helped take care of him towards the end of his life.
|
There is a separate
item on "Castrati" in the
Around Naples Encyclopedia that you may read