Castrati: Off To The Chop Shop
Slate reports: “If you were part of a poor family–mainly in Italy but here and there around Europe–and you had a son with a glimmer of musical talent, it was off to the chop shop. As a young chorister, Joseph Haydn narrowly escaped it. Barbers in Naples hung a sign: ‘Boys castrated cheap here.'” Anne Rice once wrote a wonderful novel about this scene, “Cry To Heaven,” which could make quite a movie.
