Writer's Block: Time in a bottle

[mojosmom]

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I don't even have to think about this one. Maria Callas. And, if I can have two, also Giuseppe di Stefano. If I can have three, Tito Gobbi. And the opera is Tosca!

And then Carlo Broschi (Farinelli), because I'm very curious about what a castrato sounded like.

Comments

[holmesfan.livejournal.com]

By a curious coincidence, as I read your posting, MrFan was reading an article on his PC titled "Natures Rejects; The Music of the Castrati". It gives the history of the Castrati and includes little hot spots where one could hear a few bars of song.
He had just clicked on one hot spot and I heard a brief snatch from Cecilia Bartoli who was "talking about her new recording, Sacrificium, which concerns the most exquisitely unsettling episode in the history of music: the castrati and the music written for them".
You might like to try this link

http://www.Slate.com/id/2234635/pagenum/all

Just in case that doesn't work for you I can tell you that MrF found it through his favourite website Arts and Letters Daily 'aldaily.com' which has wonderful summaries from major world newspapers and publications. He spends hours there every morning. There was a link to "Music of the Castrati" in a listing in the left hand margin.

All new and educational for me - I'd never heard that word before, let alone brief snippets.

[mojosmom.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link! I read Slate occasionally, but not every day, so missed this. I'll definitely be looking for Bartoli's CD; she's a favorite singer of mine, and that first clip is from one of my favorite arias!