This work is concerned primarily with the five seasons the castrato soprano, Giovanni Battista Velluti spent in London between 1825 and 1829. This time-place is unique in operatic history insofar as it sees the meeting of the new, exhaustively detailed, descriptive musical-critical journalism that emerged in the nineteenth century as it encountered the last operatic castrato in the last decade of his public performing career. Beginning with a historiographical overview of writings about the castrati, spanning from the early eighteenth century to the present day, the introduction establishes the methodological and thematic placement of this dissertation. Chapter 1 details the events of the last fifteen years of Velluti's career. These almost exactly overlap the period of his presence in English periodicals and the focus of the next chapter, the late, English, literary Romantic. The Romantics were deeply interested in music and were the principal intellectual creators of the music critical style that arose in the 1820s. Their cognition will be explored to the extent it can found utilized in writing about the voice, the otherness of disability and horror and fear of the other intruding upon the personal space of the self. Chapters 3 and 4 will proceed from literarily expressed cognitive understanding to the operatic voice of the 1820s: not only the castrato, but female singers, tenors and countertenors. While chapter 4 establishes the manner in which these voices functioned in their various, clearly audible registers, chapter 5 will then explore the meanings that each of these registers conveyed, especially regarding perceived gender and disability. These meanings are reinforced by excerpts of poetry and prose, fact and fiction, from England and the Continent. Chapter 5 examines the two ornamentational styles of Velluti, as they survive in published and manuscript sources from the 1810s and 1820s, comparing them to other singers of his time and reading them as literary texts. Velluti's highly literary rather than purely melodic ornamentation lends itself particularly to this cross-disciplinary approach. The work concludes with a short chapter concerning the end of Velluti's life and the last two castrati, one undoubted, one dubious, to appear on the English concert stage.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the uses of the falsetto voice in training the male singer. Developing the upper voice is one of the most difficult problems facing the male singers. A most controversial approach to solving this problem is the use of the falsetto. The falsetto has been a subject of mystery among singers and vocal teachers for centuries. Some authorities have ignored it; some have denounced; others have greatly extolled this vocal enigma. Many myths and misconceptions surround the subject of falsetto. Even in the present age of scientific research and knowledge, there is little understanding of the falsetto--of its value and its use. The material dealing with falsetto is very brief and inconclusive in most pedagogy books. Therefore, there seemed to be a need for a systematic collection of pedagogical ideas concerning the male falsetto. This report will attempt to present all sides of the controversy.,

No description available.

This master thesis will examine the role of falsetto in structuring the male singing voice. The author will examine both Czech and international literature of the 20th century concerned with pedagogy of singing with regard to the use of head register. Works that are cited in this thesis were chosen based upon their authors' common view that it is the contribution of head voice that should play major role in structuring the singing voice. Czech authors in this thesis include Antonín Mařík, Jiří Bar, Rudolf Vašek and Přemysl Kočí. Foreign authors are represented by Anthony Frisell. This thesis strives to summarize main pedagogical concepts of the above mentioned authors. Based upon citations, it lists and explains their most common views. Apart from explaining thoughts and opinions that are shared by a majority of listed authors, this thesis also mentions views and opinions that are in some way radical or significantly different from the rest of the group. These pedagocial concepts of head voice training are later compared with the current method of chest voice training. Here, the author draws not only on the literature but also on his experience from his studies of classical singing at the Prague Conservatory. This work will also strive to summarize and compare terms such as register, head voice,...