Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli shall be bringing an uncommon program of music to Toronto Summer time 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 plenty 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 focus on Baroque and early Nineteenth-century bel canto opera, has typically 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 received the Bertelsmann singing competitors Neue Stimmen in Gütersloh, Germany, in 2003, and launched his skilled profession. He turned the primary countertenor to signal an unique contract with the venerable Deutsche Grammophon label.
We caught up with the countertenor, based mostly nowadays in Spain, and presently on a North American tour, to speak in regards to 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 position of a countertenor in classical music isn’t so broadly referred to as the choir traditional SATB. How did Franco come to decide on the position of a countertenor to pursue?
“It was a stunning surprising expertise after I was a toddler, and I used to be chosen to sing in Mozart’s the Magic Flute,” Fagioli recollects. He was 11 years previous.
“I feel that was very robust for me as a toddler,” he says. “I nonetheless bear in mind immediately the sound of the orchestra tuning.” He listened because the soloists carried out their elements. “I feel it was about that,” he says of the expertise.
He’d begun to sing in class 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 into the norm for him as a toddler.
“Even when I name myself a counter tenor as a result of it’s a generic identify, I sing within the soprano vary.”
He started to check piano efficiency. “Then I began to check piano, and I used to be very centered 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 informed 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 be taught 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 suppose I’m simply enjoying round,” he recollects. “I stated, oh my god, I wish to do that. I wish to do the countertenor path.”
It led to the profession he has now. “I “found I had a mezzo-soprano register. I might have referred to 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 feel Mozart has rather a lot to do with it,” he says. Considered one of his early recordings was dedicated to the work of Mozart.
As soon as he’d made the change to finding out voice, and moved to Buenos Aires, his instructors centered on educating him the bel canto approach from the outset. “I didn’t have something to do with the British custom of countertenors,” he notes. As an alternative, he moved straight into operatic repertoire — identical to the castrati of previous.
The Final Castrato
On the subject of the repertoire he loves and performs, he likes to dive into historic analysis.
“I really 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), deal with the legacy of Giovanni Battista Velluti.
Giovanni Battista Velluti was born on January 28, 1780, and was castrated by a health care provider on the age of eight, ostensibly as a remedy for a excessive fever and cough. Initially destined for a army profession by his mother and father, he was shifted to musical coaching. He’d turn into associates with the person who would turn into 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 in regards to the mid-Sixteenth century till the 18th, their recognition peaking between 1630 and 1850. Velluti was an anomaly in his time, and carried out carried out the final operatic castrato position ever written, that of Meyerbeer’s Armando, in Venice in 1824.
As Fagioli factors out, whereas the artwork type was within the midst of change, with the heroic tenor changing the position the castrato would sometimes take, composers nonetheless tended to put in writing the music in an identical model. 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 can find in that Velluti album that I recorded some arias within the bel canto model,” he says. “There was this enormous custom that was nonetheless current within the Nineteenth century.”
Whereas musical traditions continued, nonetheless, the position 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 sooner or later in his profession.
“Velluti represents the top of a really particular manner 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 numerous composers look deceptively easy. On the naked bones that the rating supplied, 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 fascinating insights into the artwork. “It was very fascinating to see within the rating,” Franco says, “[…] all of the elements are written and completed. Then you definately 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 apply 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 type 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 really like to fulfill the scores,” Fagioli says. “These days, we might 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 manner that’s mine, and in addition to homage this apply.”
It’s about connecting the virtuosity of Velluti’s approach to the extra expressive model modern audiences anticipate.
“He makes use of many notes to say one phrase,” Fagioli laughs. “These days, we have to discover a strategy to undergo that — to go extra into the emotion.”
- Discover live performance particulars and tickets [HERE].
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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 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
