Castrati
Tuesday 11 November from 9pm to 10pm Wednesday 12 November from 9pm to 10pm Thursday 13 November from 9pm to 10pm Friday 14 November from 9pm to 10pm Saturday 15 November from 9pm to 10pm Sunday 16 November from 7pm to 8pm
The performance on Thursday 13 November will be Auslan Interpreted. The performance on Friday 14 November is masks mandatory. All performances are masks encouraged.
Since opera's inception in 1607, castrati—male singers, castrated before puberty to retain their high voices—were the stage's greatest stars. Their unique timbre, range and flexibility were unrivaled across Europe. The grisly techniques of the era unearth a lot of ethical quandaries, and leave a trail of bloody spectacle through the Renaissance and into the modern era.
The castrato’s voice went extinct in 1922, and there are only a few grainy recordings that give us the merest glimpse of its astonishing beauty. The HRT trans-masculine voice did not exist until 1940. This voice is awkward and uncelebrated, most often its largest ambition is to merely pass unnoticed into history. These two voices never stood on the same stage.
Weaving classical arias with hyper-pop, Castrati delves into the unlikely parallels and resonances between two eras, and poses the question: What if the transmasculine voice is just as remarkable as the castrato? Exploring history, biology, musicology, and transition, follow Kit as he re-learns how to sing through his second puberty, and watch him negotiate tradition, legibility and joy.