The Castrato Singer

I am surprised that I have not learned about this from AP Music Theory or history classes. The Baroque practice of castrating boys to turn them into opera singers is both peculiar and horrific. It is strange that while the term "falsetto" means "false," a falsettist still sings with his natural voice. A castrato, on the other hand, who undergoes a huge procedure to not only alter his voice but also his anatomy, has a voice that is deemed "natural."

The procedure that castratos underwent took away their body's ability to produce testosterone, which functions in growth, giving characteristics of the male sex, and in reproduction. This significantly altered the castrato's appearance and other aspects of his body. The epiphyses of the bones, or the growth plates, would not fuse normally, and thus the bones would continue to grow, giving a castrato abnormally long limbs. This also applied to their ribs. Castratos had big chests, providing them with greater capacity for lung expansion and thence greater lung power. Castratos' voices never dropped. A chastrato's larynx and vocal chords remained the same as a boy's, allowing for their higher vocal range, and the greater lung power meant he could hold notes longer and sing with greater power, or force.

Castratos could not grow facial hair, and their muscles did not develop to the extent of a normal man's. They also had a pale, or cyanotic, complexion because testosterone normally stimulates bone marrow to produce red blood cells which carry oxygen throughout the body. A decrease of red blood cells would mean less oxygen can be circulated through the body. A castrato could not father children because his testicles were removed. This made marriage forbidden to castratos because in the eye's of the church, the sole purpose of marriage was to produce children.