Portrait of a Castrato
Cambridge University Press, 5/14/2009
EAN 9780521885218, ISBN10: 0521885213
Hardcover, 452 pages, 24.7 x 17.4 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
This book explores the fascinating life of the most documented musician of the seventeenth century. Born in 1626 into a bourgeois family in Pistoia, Italy, Atto Melani was castrated to preserve his singing voice and soon rose to both artistic and social prominence. His extant letters not only depict the musical activities of several European centers, they reveal the real-life context of music and the musician: how a singer related to patrons and colleagues, what he thought about his profession, and the role music played in his life. Whether Atto was singing, spying, having sex, composing, or even rejecting his art, his life illustrates how music-making was always also a negotiation for power. Providing a rare glimpse of the social and political contexts of seventeenth-century music, Roger Freitas sheds light on the mechanisms that generated meaning for music, clarifying what music at this time actually was.
Introduction
1. Creating a castrato
2. The politics of patronage
1638–53
3. In pursuit of prestige
1653–5
4. The sexuality of the castrato
5. Disgrace and transformation
1656–71
6. Atto Melani and the cantata
7. Completing the portrait
1671–1714
Appendices
A. The letters of Atto Melani
B. Letters addressed to or concerning Atto Melani
C. Satires
Sopra Atto Melani musico and Al Signor Atto Melani
D. Excerpt from the Receuil des défenses of Nicolas Fouquet
E. Biographical sketch from Tommaso Trenta's Memorie
F. The cantata texts of Atto Melani, with analyses and translations
G. The Wills
For Italy
For France
H. The cabinet in the 'Salotto dell'Abbate Melani', from the inventory of 1782.
'Richly documented, this whole extraordinary chronicle of the eunuch as self-made man is one of the most absorbing studies in its field to have appeared in recent years.' Times Literary Supplement