Farinelli. The greatest castrate of the Enlightenment. Barbier P.

XVIII century - the golden age of musical baroque and triumph of Castrates vocalists. The book is dedicated to the greatest of them - Carlo throws, known to the whole world as Farinelli. A native of the South, thanks to talent and hard work, he conquered all of Italy with his art. Then, at the invitation of the Spanish Queen Isabella Farneze, he moved to Spain to facilitate the divine singing (the singer's voice took three octaves and had incredible flexibility) the suffering of the seriously ill kingdom of Philip V, and after his death became a play by his son, King Ferdinand VI and his wife Maria Barbara. A unique vocalist, perhaps the most influential figure in the Spanish court, the owner of a huge fortune, the holder of the Knight's Order of Calatrava, the closest friend of the great poet Metastasio, spent twenty -two years in Madrid. The last twenty years of his life have passed in Bologna, where he visited the whole color of Europe, from Mozart to Casanova. The author, a well -known music historian, for the first time meticulously recreates the biography of Farinelli according to the documents and letters of contemporaries.