In Spain they were called capons, with that more traditional touch that turns the foreign into something more mundane. Precisely in the case of the castrati, this Spanish term, now in disuse, probably more accurately defined the no less sinister image of the castrated singing children to preserve their timbre.
And about these characters, whose macabre resource was used for centuries until the XNUMXth, Cesar Aira builds this novel that moves through the Europe of the eighteenth century, a continent that had been orphaned by political influences after the death of Louis XIV, whose reign seemed never to end.
Like any transition, the death of the sun king also led to a new artistic, costumbrista and ornamental orientation for every court. And as also usually happens when an old regime is extinguished, shoots of freedom emerge in artistic forms or in literature. Europe then indulged in the rococo trend, a kind of revolution that affected architecture, art and ornamentation, as well as fashion trends and even philosophy and thought.
A new individualism loaded with mysticism while full of sensuality was translated into more sinuous forms in the rechargedness of all representation. Court life seemed to take on a new color and the castrati resonated throughout Europe as a great current hit, with their high tones also refreshing the perspective of music as pure leisure and exoticism.
In this scenario magnificently recounted by the author, we also enjoy an authentic historical narrative with all the geopolitical movements of the moment. Old Europe was abuzz to find new alliances of power. Only ..., driven by this new art form, under those feelings of preponderance of the personal, love also emerges in history with great force, through characters like Micchino, the best castrato of all and his encounter with Amanda , a woman as unhappy as knowing that love is something else.
Passions unleashed in a world redirected to a momentous change that would possibly lay the foundations of modernity.
You can now buy the novel Castrato song, the new book by César Aira, here: