A Note from our Countertenor, Joseph Hill

Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) holds a significant place in music history as the last living castrato singer, and the only one known to have recorded on the newly-invented phonograph. Moreschi’s legacy, preserved today on digitally-enhanced CD, comprises less than an hour’s worth of music. It remains a unique and invaluable archive for a sound and performance tradition forever lost. If, in future, a rising castrato star appears, he undoubtedly will be the result of a medical condition, and will be lacking the rigor and monotony of 19th-century training begun in boyhood.

In choosing music for The Last Castrato, our first consideration was the historical significance of the repertoire recorded by Moreschi in 1902 and 1904. The Incipit Lamentatio will be heard in the play, as will other examples of Gregorian chant. We have also included the Pie Jesu by Ignace Xavier Joseph Leybach, specially arranged for the play, based on Moreschi’s recording. Its text comes from the last stanza of the Dies Irae hymn of the Requiem Mass. The Leybach setting was highly popular at the turn of the last century, and was sung at the Washington Cathedral as late as 1963, at the funeral service of John F. Kennedy. Despite its one-time popularity, the score is now long out-of-print. Our arrangement is meant to illustrate the rich timbre of the Vatican choir, while the music itself is entirely in keeping with religious ceremonial for the mourning of a great personage.

Other musical selections were chosen in homage to the heyday of the castrati. Some of the finest operas of the 17th and 18th centuries were written for celebrated castrati, who were among the great cultural icons of Europe. Mozart’s opera Mitridate , written in 1770, was completed when the composer was only 14. Written in the Italian florid style, Mitridate exemplifies outstanding virtuosic arias, employing three castrati in lead roles. The aria Venga pur , written in the typical Baroque da capo form for the castrato Giuseppe Cicognani, requires vocal power and flexibility. Also by Mozart, the motet Ave Verum Corpus was recorded by Moreschi and the Sistine Chapel Choir, with Moreschi singing soprano. Exsultate Jubilate , Mozart’s solo motet written for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, is florid and requires an operatic technique. The Baroque structures and Italianate vocal passages are juxtaposed to the orchestral writing, with its Classical theme fragments, Alberti bass, and harmonic progression.

Moreschi’s most surprising record, and the only non-liturgical piece he recorded, is Tosti’s Ideale . Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1914) was a popular composer of the day whose songs are mostly performed by operatic tenors such as Pavarotti and Domingo. Lastly, the playwright has taken the liberty of writing Mimi’s aria Donde lieti (from Puccini’s La Bohème ) and the "Jewel Song" (from Gounod’s Faust) into the play. While there is no evidence that Moreschi performed these particular pieces, it is known that arrangements of popular arias (called rifacimenti) were performed with sacred texts by the castrati of the Sistine Chapel Choir. Here, and throughout, our intent has been to portray Moreschi as a virtuosic soloist who was skilled at singing a wide variety of vocal music.