http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slhhg8sI6Ds
The castrati play a fascinating role in the history of singing. To discover the origin of this practice we need to look at the Church of Rome's interpretation of two biblical passages:
"Let your women keep silence in the churches," (I Corinthians 14:34), and "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over men, but to be in silence." (I Timothy 2:11-12).
The current thinking is that St. Paul appreciated the contributions of women to the early church, but that he believed women should not take part in theological discussions or teach men.
The Church's interpretation of these passages, however, was strict. Women were not allowed to speak or sing in church. The Church also forbade women to participate in the theater.
In the Middle Ages, the lack of female voices in the relatively simple church music was not a problem. Young boys' voices had difficulty, though, with the complex polyphony that was being written in the late 1500s by the contrapuntalists in the Netherlands. Either their voices were not strong enough to maintain the part, or by the time they had gained the musicianship required to execute the music, their voices were changing.
Initially this problem was solved by importing falsettists from Spain and for a time Spanish falsettists held a monopoly in the Sistine Chapel. Somehow they seemed to have discovered a secret for giving the falsetto voice more agility, range and a richer sound. Some have suggested that these falsettists were, in fact, castrati and some may have been.
It is documented that in 1599, Pietro Paolo Folignato and Girolamo Rossini (No relation to the other Rossini that we know.), two Italian castrati were admitted to the Sistine Chapel. This, along with the invention of opera at about that time, ushered in the age of the castrati.
Castration had existed for centuries as a form of punishment. In other situations, slaves were castrated and then used as harem guards or as servants or tutors for upper class women.
Essentially there are two types of castration: removal of all the genitalia (usually inflicted as punishment and often fatal) and removal of the testes only. The latter of these was what was performed on prepubescent boys usually between the ages of seven and twelve.
Unfortunately many boys were castrated with the belief that castration alone would make them good singers. It is estimated that at the height of the castrati's popularity during the eighteenth century as many as four thousand boys a year were castrated in Italy. Sadly very few of them became rich or famou