Castrati reference on TV yesterday (UK)

[stan (imported)]

Not sure this is the forum for this titbit but here goes:

A docu-series currently shown on UK's Channel 4 had a segment on castrati last night. The series 'Human Mutants' is an exploration of our genetic make-up and its deviations from the norm. Last night the focus was on growth and at some point the presenter began talking about the role of hormones on growth control. He then mentioned that because of their testosterone related oestrogen shut-down, the limb growth of pre-pubertal castrati never stopped so to speak. As a result, he claimed that castrati had exceptionally long limbs - and flashed a rather grotesque eighteenth century engraving of a monkey-like creature to that effect. Artistic liberty aside, can someone enlighten us on this (Jesus perhaps?) Or maybe this topic has already been discussed??

In any case, the programme devoted some time to the heavenly qualities of the castrati voice, their diva status etc and played a short snippet from Moreschi's famous recording...

[JesusA (imported)]

I have a number of related, but quite separate comments, to make on this. I’ll put them in somewhat random order as I compose my ideas.

1) I would be willing to guess that the “

rather grotesque eighteenth century engraving

” was a vicious characature of Francesco Bernardi (stage name Sinesino) done by William Hogarth in 1723. It is the most commonly reproduced image of a castrato that I have found. Patrick Barbier, in his book The World of the Castrati, reproduces it next to a much more flattering mezzotint of Sinesino by Vanhaecken. Barbier also reproduces a number of other portraits of castrati that are worth checking out. Hans Fritz, in his book Kastratengesang: Hormonelle, Konstitutionelle und Pädagogische Aspekte, reproduces a number of characatures as well as more flattering portaits, most of them different from Barbier’s selection. The various portraits may have been made intentionally flattering to their subjects, but they all seem to show castrati as normal individuals, not as freaks.

2) Presence of sex hormones in the system (whether testosterone or estrogen) seems to be connected with speed of the epiphyseal fusion at puberty. The epiphyses are the end pieces of the long bones of the body. At early ages, they are small, separate bones connected to the long bones by cartilage. Eventually, the cartilage ossifies and the separate bones become one. The small cartilage gaps are the location of growth in length of the bones. Without sex hormones in the system, there is a delay in the closing of the epiphyses and the bones tend to grow longer before the cartilage ossifies. This means that the long bones of the body tend to grow longer in the absence of sex hormones. This is a tendency, not an absolute.

3) There is/was tremendous variation among castrati and other prepubertal eunuchs in the growth of their long bones (arms and legs). Both Fritz (cited above) and Eugène Pittard, in his book La castration chez l’homme, have the same nude photograph of the Skoptzy, Ivan Gregor, at age 24. He was castrated at age 5. His legs are exceedingly long in relation to his trunk, and his fingers nearly reach his knees. Pittard places immediately next to this photo a fully clothed one of Iwan Mil at age 20. He was castrated at age 10 and looks like any normal young man. He would fit well within the range of the university students I have worked with. Pittard includes a number of other photographs of Skoptzy men, sometimes noting whether they had been castrated before or after puberty. Most seem to have arm and leg lengths within the normal range. Fritz also includes a nude photo of “Der Skopze Andrej”, who also has extremely long arms. The accompanying footnote says that his middle finger reached to his knee. The close-up of his castration scar shows a penis stump large enough in diameter that I would guess that he was castrated well into puberty. The photographs that I have seen of Chinese eunuchs show them as well within the range of uncastrated Chinese, though I do not have information on which of them were castrated before puberty and which were castrated after.

4) I hope that the program noted that Alessandro Moreschi had never been considered a very fine singer and that the recording was made well after whatever prime he had had. It certainly could not be considered a good example of the castrato voice. Much better would have been to play an excerpt by the Brazilian “countertenor” Paolo Abel do Nascimento. While the official story on do Nascimento was that he was hypogonadal and had simply never gone through puberty, it is interesting that his family refused to allow an autopsy after his premature death. There were certainly plenty of rumors that he had been castrated before puberty and that his spectacular voice was that of a true castrato. During the height of the “castrati period” in Italian music, there were certainly many castrati who had terrible voices, as any quick reading of the literaure will indicate.

In other words, the range is tremendous. Thus far in my research, I would find it difficult to make any generalizations.

I hope this helps.

[stan (imported)]

It does indeed: thank you Jesus!!

1. Yes, the caricature was indeed a Hogarth, although I do not remember the name of the castrato in question - but I trust you are right about Bernardi.

2. Re the influence of hormones on epiphyseal fusion: speaking of tendencies and likely links between absence of hormones and long bone growth does not make for 'great TV', sadly. So all the caveats and the counterexamples were swept away in the interest of ratings: the viewers were left with this picture of pre-pubertal eunuchs as unearthly creatures fitting in a gallery of other skeletal mutations.

4. The presenter (evolutionary biologist Armand Leroi, plugging his book via TV) did suggest that Moreschi was not perhaps the best example of a castrato voice but it was left at that.

I had no idea that there is another recorded example of a castrato voice!!! I hope that it is possible to get recordings of do Nascimento. Now I am really curious: I am familiar with the counter-tenor range, but only through David Daniels and Andreas Scholl. I have always wondered what the difference is between that and the castrato voice (what makes it possible to say that do Nascimento was closer to castrati than other countertenors)?

Thanks again Jesus, your scholarship is much appreciated!

[Kelly_2 (imported)]

Yes, as Jesus has detailed, the lack of sex hormones tends to cause arms and even legs to grow further.

An example is the rather common occurrence of Klinefelter's (a.k.a. Kleinfelter's), that is, the XXY karyotype. They tend to have far less testosterone than XY guys, and are indeed taller. From:

http://yalenewhavenhealth.org/library/h ... d=hw183686

Males with Klinefelter's syndrome may be described as XXY males or males with XXY syndrome. Klinefelter's syndrome occurs in about 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 males

Some males with Klinefelter's syndrome may not fully develop secondary male sexual characteristics—such as the growth of the testicles and penis, deeper voice, and body hair—and usually cannot father children

Klinefelter's syndrome usually goes undiagnosed until the preteen years (around ages 11 to 12), when males often begin puberty. At this point, the boy's testicles fail to grow normally. The testicles do not reach adult size, may not be able to produce adequate testosterone, and are not able to produce enough sperm to father children

Because of low testosterone levels, boys with Klinefelter's syndrome may:

Be taller than others in the family and have long, thin arms and legs, narrow shoulders, and wide hips.

Hugs,

Kelly

[A-1 (imported)]

Talk about your strange genetic diseases...

There was this Caribbean country, I am not sure which one, where these children were born girls.

Then, at puberty, they develop into boys...

This was not common, but it seemed to happen on a reqular basis in certain families.

Have you all heard of this? I know that it is backwards of what some here would want, kind of a nightmare scenerio, but I saw it sopmewhere and I cannot remember where.

Getting old does that to you.

Heh heh heh...

A-1

[Kelly_2 (imported)]

There was this Caribbean country, I am not sure which one, where these children were born girls.

Then, at puberty, they develop into boys...

The country is the Dominican Republic, and the condition is "5 alpha-reductase deficiency." For instance:

http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

During the early 1970s, Dr. Julianne Imperato, a Cornell endocrinologist, conducted an expedition to the Dominican Republic to investigate reports of an isolated village where children appearing to be girls turned into men at puberty. In the village, these children were known as 'guevedoces' (literally, penis at 12 years). Also known locally as machihembras ('first women, then man'), these pseudohermaphrodites were documented serially in the following photographs published originally in the American Journal of Medicne (Am. J. Med. 62: 170-191, 1977):

In an isolated village of the southwestern Dominican Republic, 2% of the live births were in the 1970's, guevedoces (actually male pseudohermaphrodites). These children appeared to be girls at birth, but at puberty these 'girls' sprout muscles, testes, and a penis. For the rest of their lives they are men in nearly all respects (see photograph 6 below). Their underlying pathology was found to be a deficiency of the enzyme, 5-alpha Reductase.

This has also been seen in Papua New Guinea:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... s=91347540

We report a cluster of male pseudohermaphrodites from the Simbari Anga linguistic group in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. These subjects are born with a rudimentary clitoral-like penis and pseudovaginal perineoscrotal hypospadias. At puberty, the penis enlarges with concurrent growth of pubic and axillary hair and significant muscular development. There is significant facial hair, but it is less than that of their normal male siblings or other male relatives. Plasma collected from four adult subjects revealed elevated plasma testosterone levels, low to low normal dihydrotestosterone levels, and elevated testosterone/dihydrotestosterone ratios. All subjects had high urinary aetiocholanolone/androsterone ratios, and C19 and C21 5 beta/5 alpha metabolite ratios. Decreased 5 alpha-reductase activity was demonstrated in fibroblasts cultured from genital skin. The data indicate a phenotypic and biochemical profile similar to patients studied in the Dominican Republic, except for a greater abundance of facial and body hair. The phenotypic variability, as pertains to facial and body hair, may be related to differences in familial expression, as well as the degree of enzyme deficiency. Infants, thought to be females at birth, were reared as girls until puberty in a society practising one of the strictest gender segregations known. At puberty, these 'girls' were discovered to be boys, and a switch of gender roles was instituted. Recently, however, some Muniri, Dunkwi and northern Simbari hamlets recognize these individuals as male in infancy and rear them as boys, calling them 'kwalatmala' to distinguish them from normal males, accepting them as an intersex destined to occupy male adult roles.

This same condition affected the fictional narrator of the Pulitzer Prize winning author Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 77-1665501

His beautifully written novel begins: "Specialized readers may have come across me in Dr. Peter Luce's study, 'Gender Identity in 5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites.' " The "me" of that sentence, "Cal" Stephanides, narrates his story...

As well as:

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal."

Hugs,

Kelly

[A-1 (imported)]

Thanks, Kelly2.

So you all see, I don't know as much as you all might think that I do.

Isn't it remarkable of the knowledge and expertise that we all have collectively?

Thanks again, Kelly2, that information should be more in the public domain.

A-1

[Moreschi (imported)]

Talk about your strange genetic diseases...

There was this Caribbean country, I am not sure which one, where these children were born girls.

Then, at puberty, they develop into boys...

This was not common, but it seemed to happen on a reqular basis in certain families.

Have you all heard of this? I know that it is backwards of what some here would want, kind of a nightmare scenerio, but I saw it sopmewhere and I cannot remember where.

Getting old does that to you.

Heh heh heh...

A-1

I saw that too. Was on tv at some point. So you're not the only one with a memory like that!

[John W. (imported)]

I have heard that story (from the Dominican Republic and Papua New Guinea) before somewhere. However, for them to have later developed male phenotypes, their 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which prevents testosterone from being converted by that enzyme to the much more potent dihydrotestosterone which is the steroid that actually "does all the damage", would have been only partial, rather than complete. It is also a condition distinct from total or partial androgen insensitivity (AIS), in which androgen receptors are lacking.

5-alpha-reductase deficiency can be simulated by means of drugs that preferentially occupy the testosterone receptor sites on the enzyme, preventing it from converting testosterone, e.g. finasteride, and saw palmetto fruit extract. These are used in the treatmet of enlarged prostate and (along with castration) as a palliative for prostate cancer, which are caused by testosterone.

About modern castrati singers: another genuine one who has been recorded in recent years is Radu Marian, a Romanian, of whom I have some recordings (of 18th century arias originally sung by castrati) as MP3 files made when he was about 24 or 25, some years ago.

Alessandro Moreschi's recording of the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria" as featured in a locally-made radio broadcast here in New Zealand about the castrati in the early 1970s. (I have the CD of his recordings). He was 44 and 46 when he made his recordings in 1902 and 1904, and the apparent poor quality is due to the limitations of the acoustic recording process available at the time. Franz Haböck, who wrote a long book on the castrati, published from Vienna and Stuttgart, was a friend of Moreschi, and rated him as the best singer he had ever heard.

I happen to be a natural soprano castrato myself, possibly a case of Klinefelter's, never having gone through puberty, being middle-aged. I will have some sample recordings available in the near future. In the meantime, anyone wanting to hear me, live, can contact me off-line, for a telephone number. I am not unusually tall at 1.73 m. (5' 8"), although I do have limb proportions just within the eunuchoid range; but what is unusual is that I reached my final height at the age of only 12, not growing further (except fatter!).

[Bagoas (imported)]

I have some of Alessandro Moreschi's recordings as well as the LP version of the CD referred to. The apparent poor quality of the voice is an artifact of the recording process, but not

due to the limitations of the acoustic recording process

but rather to a very inept transfer to the master tape. The bleating "nanny-goat" quality of the voice manifested in the LP, and, I presume in the CD made from the same master tape, is simply not present in the original recordings.The quality of his voice, as recorded, is inconsistent. He sings better in some sessions than in others, probably to be expected of a singer in his 60's. My overall impression of his voice from the original acoustical 78's, is that of a sweet, often beautiful, soprano voice, NEVER a nanny-goat. Stylistic peculiarities which detract from appreciation of his singing by modern listeners, particularly a "swooping" attack on the high notes, probably arise not from vocal limitations, e.g. a poor sense of pitch, but from the singing style of his time. One must remember that Moreschi was trained as a singer in the late 19th century, the 1870's and 1880's. The vocal technique of that time was not that of today. I wouldn't say that Moreschi was a great singer, but he comes across as a respectable one.