The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (2005)
“A world of music and gossip, glitter and sweat, harmony and backbiting. An artificial world, the stage a little world of its own within the larger world of the auditorium, and quite disconnected from the sun-soaked streets of the world outside the theatre.It was a ridiculous, gruelling enterprise. She was not in vocal practice, not after her time on the road. The San Benedetto was a huge theatre, and not all her work with Silvestrini had prepared her for such demands on her voice. She had the v...oice, that was admitted grudgingly by even the least enthusiastic of her fellow thespians, but did she have the stamina?For a castrato, they whispered, the voice was undeveloped. In her few snatched hours of rest, Alethea explained this to Figgins, who was severe and disapproving at men singing women’s roles, women dressing up in men’s breeches to entertain the crowd, and of the foreign idea of men being emasculated to preserve their boyish voices.“It isn’t done at all these days, the few remaining castrati are older men.”“If men you can call them”—with a sniff.“The quality of the castrato voice lies in the combination of a boy’s high, pure voice with the physique, the lungs and chest, of a grown man.”“How came these men to be eunuchs?MoreLess
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