Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli will likely be bringing an uncommon program of music to Toronto Summer season Music for his recital on July 29. The Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles, with conductor Stefan Plewniak, will accompany him in Franco Fagioli: The Final Castrato.
The repertoire consists of choices by Rossini, Nicolini, Bonfichi, Rode, Zingarelli and Mercadante, all the songs written within the excessive register of the Italian castrato custom, and lots of of them written for Giovanni Battista Velluti, the final operatic castrato of renown.
In February 2025, Fagioli launched the album The Final Castrato: Arias for Velluti. Fagioli, who tends to specialise in Baroque and early Nineteenth-century bel canto opera, has usually showcased the repertoire of Italian castrati in his work.
Born in Argentina, Fagioli studied on the Superior Artwork Institute of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. With a three-octave vary, and mastery of approach, he gained the Bertelsmann singing competitors Neue Stimmen in Gütersloh, Germany, in 2003, and launched his skilled profession. He grew to become the primary countertenor to signal an unique contract with the venerable Deutsche Grammophon label.
We caught up with the countertenor, based mostly lately in Spain, and at present on a North American tour, to speak concerning the music and the traditions embedded inside it.
Fagioli sings Non lasciarmi in tal momento from Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira:
Franco Fagioli: The Interview
The function of a countertenor in classical music isn’t so extensively referred to as the choir basic SATB. How did Franco come to decide on the function of a countertenor to pursue?
“It was a stunning stunning expertise after I was a baby, and I used to be chosen to sing in Mozart’s the Magic Flute,” Fagioli recollects. He was 11 years outdated.
“I believe that was very sturdy for me as a baby,” he says. “I nonetheless bear in mind at the moment the sound of the orchestra tuning.” He listened because the soloists carried out their elements. “I believe it was about that,” he says of the expertise.
He’d begun to sing at school at age 9. “I used to be singing within the choir.” Earlier than too lengthy, the choir grasp had found his excessive singing vary, and gave him soprano elements that will turn out to be the norm for him as a baby.
“Even when I name myself a counter tenor as a result of it’s a generic title, I sing within the soprano vary.”
He started to review piano efficiency. “Then I began to review piano, and I used to be very targeted on it,” he stated.
However, regardless of his new emphasis on piano as an instrumental musician, that Magic Flute expertise by no means left him. In Argentina, he didn’t discover a context for his vocals.
“There, no one advised me, look, what you’re doing is a voice that’s used for opera,” he says. “For me, it was like a joke.”
At one level throughout his piano research in San Miguel de Tucumán, he was trying to study The Stabat Mater, a Thirteenth-century Christian hymn to the Virgin Mary. He went to discover a music retailer to purchase an album as a reference for the work, and he recounts that there weren’t many dedicated to classical music within the small metropolis. He discovered one, and an album with The Stabat Mater, and as he listened to the soprano and alto voices, he had a revelation.
“[This is] what I do after I assume I’m simply taking part in round,” he recollects. “I stated, oh my god, I need to do that. I need to do the countertenor path.”
It led to the profession he has now. “I “found I had a mezzo-soprano register. I might have known as myself a male mezzo-soprano,” he says, laughing. “That was how I found this path.”
He nonetheless traces it again to that early expertise with The Magic Flute. “I believe Mozart has so much to do with it,” he says. Certainly one of his early recordings was dedicated to the work of Mozart.
As soon as he’d made the change to learning voice, and moved to Buenos Aires, his instructors targeted on instructing him the bel canto approach from the outset. “I didn’t have something to do with the British custom of countertenors,” he notes. As a substitute, he moved straight into operatic repertoire — similar to the castrati of outdated.
The Final Castrato
In terms of the repertoire he loves and performs, he likes to dive into historic analysis.
“I like that,” he says. “I like to do deep — to know from the place I’m coming.”
The Toronto present, and his final album (launched earlier in 2025), give attention to the legacy of Giovanni Battista Velluti.
Giovanni Battista Velluti was born on January 28, 1780, and was castrated by a physician on the age of eight, ostensibly as a remedy for a excessive fever and cough. Initially destined for a navy profession by his mother and father, he was shifted to musical coaching. He’d turn out to be pals with the person who would turn out to be Pope Pius VII, and made his debut on stage on the age of 20.
His expertise was acknowledged early on, and most of the composers of the day wrote roles particularly for him, together with Rossini (Arsace in Aureliano in Palmira in 1813), and Meyerbeer (Armando in Il crociato in Egitto in 1824).
“The purpose is that Giovanni Battista Velluti was the final castrato on stage within the Nineteenth century,” Franco explains.
In Italy, castrati existed from concerning the mid-Sixteenth century till the 18th, their reputation peaking between 1630 and 1850. Velluti was an anomaly in his time, and carried out carried out the final operatic castrato function ever written, that of Meyerbeer’s Armando, in Venice in 1824.
As Fagioli factors out, whereas the artwork kind was within the midst of change, with the heroic tenor changing the function the castrato would sometimes take, composers nonetheless tended to put in writing the music in an analogous fashion. He cites Rossini and Bellini, who took inspiration from most of the constructions and stylistic parts of Baroque opera into the brand new century.
“You may say that Italian opera has [no] interruption,” he says.
He hyperlinks the bel canto custom to the golden age of 18th century operas. “That’s why you will discover in that Velluti album that I recorded some arias within the bel canto fashion,” he says. “There was this big custom that was nonetheless current within the Nineteenth century.”
Whereas musical traditions continued, nevertheless, the function of the castrato didn’t. It provides a sombre contact to Velluti’s work.
The Castrato Model
“I’ve this very deep love of Nineteenth century music,” Fagioli says.
He’s launched greater than 20 albums of music, however says that, even within the early days, he knew an homage to Velluti would take form in some unspecified time in the future in his profession.
“Velluti represents the top of a really particular method of the bel canto singing, which relies on improvisation and […] filling the music with the inspiration of the singer.”
The scores created for Velluti by varied composers look deceptively easy. On the naked bones that the rating offered, the castrato was so as to add his personal embellishment.
Fagioli notes that an examination of the scores written for Girolamo Crescentini, one other castrato who lived between 1762 and 1846, gives attention-grabbing insights into the artwork. “It was very attention-grabbing to see within the rating,” Franco says, “[…] all of the elements are written and completed. You then see the a part of the castrato, it appears like a quite simple half. The composers knew, the castrato would end the composition.”
It was a observe that will primarily die with Velluti. Rossini was one of many first to place an finish to it in his personal work. “All of the fermatas are written by Rossini, all of the variations,” he stated.
It brings out a sure high quality within the music. “It’s the form of melancholy of an period that’s altering.”
Nonetheless, he sees historic connections that stretch again over the centuries. “For me, Monteverdi and Puccini are deeply related.”
For the singer, it was a rewarding expertise. “It was very difficult. I like to fulfill the scores,” Fagioli says. “These days, we’d not be used to that. Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti — they put a construction to it,” he notes.
“For me, the problem as an interpreter was to discover a method that’s mine, and likewise to homage this observe.”
It’s about connecting the virtuosity of Velluti’s approach to the extra expressive fashion modern audiences anticipate.
“He makes use of many notes to say one phrase,” Fagioli laughs. “These days, we have to discover a option to undergo that — to go extra into the emotion.”
- Discover live performance particulars and tickets [HERE].
Are you trying to promote an occasion? Have a information tip? Have to know the most effective occasions occurring this weekend? Ship us a word.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the every day arts information straight to your inbox.
Join the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — native classical music and opera information straight to your inbox HERE.
Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
