A monologue and concert performed at the Ackland Art Museum. Witnesses to an Age in Transformation is a project funded by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Amigoni’s Venus Disarming Cupid (circa 1730s or 1740s) is a product of the traditional world, an established subject from classical mythology painted in an international rococo style, owned and probably commissioned by an artist who was also a member of the nobility.

An inscription on the back of this painting indicates that it belonged to the great opera singer Farinelli (Carlo Broschi). Like many of the great male singers of the eighteenth century, Farinelli was a castrato, castrated as a boy to preserve his beautiful soprano voice. What did it mean to such a person to possess a painting of Venus and Cupid, the pagan embodiments of sexual love?

Farinelli speaks (circa 1775, age 70):

“Venus and Cupid.” There are many paintings in my villa here in Bologna, and few of my many visitors take much notice of this one. Even if they did they would hardly dare to ask the obvious question. They all know that I once had the finest soprano voice in the world, and they all know the price of that voice. What has a castrato -- a eunuch -- to do with Venus and Cupid? Perhaps there is a paradox in my owning such a painting, but it is the paradox of my entire life.

I was born in the kingdom of Naples. In his novel Candide, that wicked man Voltaire makes Naples the kingdom of castrati: “They castrate two or three thousand children there every year; some of them die of it, others acquire a voice more beautiful than that of a woman, still others come to govern nations.”

Two or three thousand is a ridiculous exaggeration, There are more castrati in the Pope’s domains around Rome than in Naples. But as for the rest of what he says -- he is talking about me. I did not die -- I was one of the lucky ones, and I gained the beautiful voice. For almost twenty years I was the most famous opera singer in the world. And then, for another twenty, I did govern a nation.

Still, I sometimes wonder what my father had in mind when he had me made a castrato.

We were not poor, like the families of most castrati. When you don’t know if you will eat tomorrow, and when a fine soprano voice has the chance of lifting the singer out of that hateful poverty -- and perhaps the whole family as well -- is it surprising that a father and mother will send a boy to the surgeon? Even if the boy’s voice fails after all, as they so often do -- if he ends his days as the choirmaster of some village church -- still it’s better than begging in the streets. But we were free from that grinding poverty. My parents were not rich, but we were respectable -- we even had minor nobility in our ancestry. My father loved music; he was an amateur musician himself, and he had encouraged my brother Ricardo in his career as a composer. Did he have some prophetic dream of my fame? I never asked him -- I was only twelve when he died.

I do not remember the operation -- and if I did I would not tell you. I must have been about nine years old -- that is the usual time. I suppose they asked me if I wanted to keep my beautiful voice forever, and if I would suffer some pain for that -- it is unlawful to castrate a boy without his consent. I suppose I was given opium and placed in a warm bath of water -- and then the surgeon came -- I tell you I do NOT remember.

And afterwards -- well, we castrati are a race apart. When they are not cheering, people laugh at us or pity us. You can spare me your pity; I have seen enough men ruin their lives for the sake of Venus. And think of priests who give up the act -- some of them, anyway -- without escaping the desire for it. I have been spared that at least.

The composer Niccolo Porpora trained me. He was my second father, and I was his star pupil. My voice did not crack or grow coarse. I grew tall and thin --not round and fat like some castrati. Above all, my lungs expanded and strengthened, till I could hold one note for a minute or more . When I was fifteen I appeared on stage for the first time, in an opera staged for the birthday of the Austrian Emperor (Naples was ruled by Austria in those days). The poet Metastasio wrote the libretto, and we have been friends ever since, although we seldom see each other since he settled in Vienna. A couple of years later, in Rome there was a famous contest between me and a trumpeter, and when I outdid him in feats of improvisation my fame spread across Italy

Soon I was singing in all the great opera houses: Rome, Venice, Milan, and here in Bologna, where I came to know the impresario, Count Sicinio Pepoli. If Porpora was my second father, Pepoli was my third -- guiding my career and arranging the contracts as I went from city to city and one opera company to another. By the time I was 23, I was the highest-paid singer in Europe, and Pepoli saw that all this money did not simply stream through my hands but was carefully managed and invested. I became a citizen of Bologna, and purchased a plot of land, and through all my travels it was a place that I could think of as home.

By that time I was singing in the German kingdoms as well as in Italy. At the Imperial court in Vienna I saw Metastasio again, and I met the emperor himself, who gave me some valuable advice after a concert where I had dazzled the audience with vocal acrobatics. “You know how to astonish your audience,” he said, “now it is time for you to please them. Instead of this endless display of musical fireworks, if you wish to reach the heart, you must take a plainer, simpler road.” I took his words to heart -- I never gave up the fireworks altogether, but I learned to keep them in reserve.

George Frederick Handel, the greatest opera composer of all, invited me to join the opera company he had started in England under the patronage of King George I would not accept his terms, and when I arrived in England a few years later it was to challenge Handel, not to work for him. The prince of Wales, who would do anything to annoy his father the King, had decided to organize a second company, “The Opera of the Nobility,” and had summoned my old master Porpora to England to direct it. Italian opera became the rage in London. Two companies: each trying to outdo the other -- each with a passionate band of supporters. The opera company at Covent Garden had the most famous composer, and the Opera of the Nobility had me, the most famous singer. They hired away Handel’s best singers as well, and the theater he had been using, and to crown everything they put on one of his own operas. Ottone.

One night when I had finished an aria, a woman’s voice screamed out above all the applause and bravos: “One God, one Farinelli!” Of course there were people who made fun of the rage for opera. My great height and my long arms were a gift to the caricaturists. But I could put up with the laughter -- There are always people who will make fun of a castrato, and in England they laugh at the king himself.

And there were more serious critics. They complained that my acting was stiff and unnatural. It is true that I acted much more with my voice than with my hands or body. But I was not playing an English farmer or a shopkeeper on stage -- I was an ancient hero, or a god -- or a goddess. In Naples I had played the part of Cleopatra, with a woman in the role of Antony -- what did that have to do with being natural? Magnificent costumes, magnificent scenery and magnificent music -- that is what you need for an opera. A subtle plot and realistic acting are luxuries.

My first season in London was glorious, my second, a triumph, my third -- acceptable. All that magnificence -- and of course, the magnificent salaries we singers were paid -- and underneath it all, London’s two opera companies were destroying each other. Once the novelty wore off, there were not enough English opera-lovers to sustain both of them. I was considering a return to my nomadic life in Italy and Germany when I received a strange summons from the Queen of Spain.

Everyone knew that the King of Spain was unwell -- many said that he was mad. For days or weeks he would lie in bed, groaning in misery, refusing to wash or change his clothes, and would see no one but the queen. Now she invited me to Spain, hoping that my music would heal his melancholy, as David’s harping had healed King Saul. I had never been to Spain, and one does not lightly refuse a royal invitation. In August of 1737 I arrived in Madrid.

The king was suffering from one of his crises -- he would never have allowed me to come before him, but the Queen had me brought to a room next to his king’s bedchamber, and there I sang a few short pieces.

There was a pause -- then I was told that the king wished to see me and they led me into his room. He was in bed, dirty and unshaven, but he reached out to touch my hand and asked me to sing again. So I gave my second performance at his bedside. Then he asked me to name my reward -- that is what kings do when you please them -- and of course I had been well prepared with my answer. I told him that my one desire was that he should get out of bed, allow himself to be shaved and dressed, and take up the duties of government again.

When he appeared in public, people said I had performed a miracle, and perhaps I had. I could not cure the king, but I could at least relieve his misery, and from that day I was his personal singer. I gave up public performance and for the next ten years -- as long as he lived -- I sang to him every evening.

Now I was glad to remember the emperor’s advice. I had astonished the court with my cure of the king -- the difficult part was to please the nobles, jealous of my favor with the Royal Family. It took all my diplomatic skill to navigate among the feuds that divided the court. The Queen hated her stepson, the crown prince Ferdinand, but I managed to keep her favor while making friends with Ferdinand and his wife Maria Barbara. I felt sorry for this young couple, isolated at court and humiliated by the queen but devoted to each other, and their love of music was a natural bond between us.

When the old king died and Ferdinand became king, I found myself his most trusted advisor. I did my best to advise him well, and I had some qualifications -- I had seen more of the courts of Europe than he had. They gave me the title of Ambassador, but I was more like what the English call prime minister. Finally I was made a knight of the Order of Calatrava, the highest honor the king could award.

But the largest part of my work was still with music. I sang only for the royal family, but now I was director of the royal opera as well. I kept Metastasio busy in Vienna, writing new libretti or adapting old ones. [-- when time pressed he could turn out a libretto in eighteen days!] And I had four composers in Spain to turn them into operas. At my suggestion the king brought the painter Amigoni to Spain -- we had become friends in England, where he painted my portrait -- and he created magnificent stage designs. For a royal marriage in 1750 I transformed not only the stage but the entire theater. The royal family themselves were dazzled when they entered the hall, and the English ambassador declared that he thought himself in Paradise.

I brought the finest singers from Italy. There was one in particular, Teresa Castellini …

You may ask, what does a castrato know of love? But a blind man may love a rose for its scent, even if he cannot see its beauty, and what I felt for this young woman was near enough to those feelings the poets write about, and that I have sung of so many times on stage. I may not understand the furnace of desire, but I have felt the summer sunshine of love. Amigoni painted our portrait, sitting together with Metastasio on one side and Amigoni himself on the other.

Queen Barbara died in 1758. Ferdinand was a shadow without her and lived less than a year. When the king dies, everything changes. Ferdinand and Barbara had no children, so his half-brother Charles came from Naples to claim the Spanish throne. This man cared only for hunting -- he hated the arts, and music above all, and he was hardly likely to accept political advice from a singer. Almost immediately he summoned me for an audience. “Farinelli,” he said “you never abused the generosity of my predecessors. Now your work is done. I have confirmed the continuation of your pension, and you are to leave the country as soon as possible” I was relieved -- it might have been much worse.

So I returned to Italy, and to Bologna. Pepoli had died, but he and his successors had taken good care of my fortune. I was allowed to bring all my possessions from Spain and I began to build this house for my retirement.

In the years since I have had many distinguished visitors: composers, musicians -- Leopold Mozart brought his son, a remarkable boy. And rulers, even the young emperor Joseph, the son of that man who gave me the good advice so many years ago. [And there was that rascal Casanova, who pursues celebrities as voraciously as pretty women.] I still hope that I will persuade Metastasio to pay me a visit, but it is a long journey from Vienna, and we are both old.

Young castrati often come to visit me for guidance in their careers. I advise them as well as I can, but I am sad for them -- they will never have the opportunities I had. Opera is changing, and the new music has less and less room for the castrato voice. In a few years, perhaps, there will be no place for castrati on the stage -- only in the great church choirs here in Italy.

I have not sung for a long time, but I play the harpsichord and the viola d’amore. And so I live here with my music, and memories, and my collection of paintings. Oh -- yes -- that little painting -- that’s where I began, isn’t it? Is it really such a strange thing for me to own? Take another look. Apollo may be the god of music, but he shares the opera with Venus, for what does an opera singer do but sing of love? And the painting is not simply Venus and Cupid -- it is “Venus disarming Cupid” And I was disarmed -- robbed of my arrows -- so that I could sing the praises of Venus.