What’s the history of castrati? In 400 AD in Constantinople, the empress Aelia Eudoxia had a eunuch choir-master, Brison (sidenote: eunuchs were castrated after puberty, so the operation didn’t ...

For a solid portion of musical history, castrato singers or ‘castrati’ had a prominent role in operas, churches and courts across Europe. But why were young boys forced to undergo the gruesome ...

THE remains of the legendary castrato singer Farinelli in Italy have been exhumed to study the anatomical effects of castration on young boys to turn them into high-pitched stars of the opera.