Page "Castrato" Paragraph 8

Although the castrato ( or musico ) predates opera, there is some evidence that castrati had parts in the earliest operas.

In the first performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo ( 1607 ), for example, they played subsidiary roles, including Speranza and ( possibly ) that of Euridice.

Although female roles were performed by castrati in some of the papal states, this was increasingly rare ; by 1680, they had supplanted " normal " male voices in lead roles, and retained their position as primo uomo for about a hundred years ; an Italian opera not featuring at least one renowned castrato in a lead part would be doomed to fail.

Because of the popularity of Italian opera throughout 18th-century Europe ( except France ), singers such as Ferri, Farinelli, Senesino and Pacchierotti became the first operatic superstars, earning enormous fees and hysterical public adulation.

The strictly hierarchical organisation of opera seria favoured their high voices as symbols of heroic virtue, though they were frequently mocked for their strange appearance and bad acting: