06 Apr 2006
Farinelli: The first pop star
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article356110.ece
Recently in News
Paris Opera Awards 2013
http://www.paris-opera-awards.fr/parisoperraawards-9480.html
London: Music under the shadow of Handel
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/london-music-under-the-shadow-of-handel
Sir Colin Davis Dead at 85
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9994121/Sir-Colin-Davis.html
“Culture: the cement that binds Europe together”
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-280_en.htm?locale=en
Welcome to awards night at the opera
http://www.standard.co.uk/arts/welcome-to-awards-night-at-the-opera-8493092.html
Wolfgang, Is That You?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/arts/music/are-those-pictures-really-mozart.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&
A New Hall for Tiroler Festspiele Erl
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2013/01/a_new_festival_.php
Simon Boccanegra Opens Rome Opera 2012-13 Season
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/11/rome_opera_open.php
Glyndebourne 2013
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/10/exciting_glynde.php
The Singer’s Appetite!
http://thesingersappetite.com/
Record Attendance at Salzburg
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/09/new_attendance_.php
“Ich kann mir keine deutschen Sätze merken”
http://www.welt.de/kultur/musik/article108680314/Ich-kann-mir-keine-deutschen-Saetze-merken.html
Debussy at 150: The Impressions Still Deceive
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/arts/music/debussys-150th-birthday-gets-little-notice.html?_r=1&ref=music
Bayreuth Does It Again
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/08/another_bayreut.php
Florida Grand Opera Appoints New Artistic Administrator
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/07/changes_at_flor.php
Friedrich Haider Appointed Artistic Director of Slovak National Theatre
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/07/changes_in_brat.php
Margrave Opera House Receives UNESCO World Heritage Status
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/07/honors_for_bayr.php
Wiener Staatsoper’s Financial Condition Improves
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/07/continued_progr.php
Uwe Erich Laufenberg Fired
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/07/lots_of_loose_e.php
Nicolas Bachler’s Contract Extended
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/06/bavarian_state_.php
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
News
Farinelli and his fellow castrati were fêted all over Europe. Michael Church explores a new exhibition that explains why
[Indepdendent 6 April 2006]
"Mention the word castrato to any male music lover," says Nicholas Clapton, "and he'll go green about the gills, because the idea is a terrible threat to his sexual identity." As a counter-tenor who has twice impersonated Farinelli, the most famous castrato of them all, Clapton is in a position to know. And as curator of an exhibition entitled Handel and the Castrati, which has just opened at the Handel House Museum in London, he's determined to bring these monstres sacrés into focus for the first time as people, rather as a historical freak-show.