On 22 Jul 2005 at 19:56, Mark D Lew wrote: > On Jul 22, 2005, at 7:14 PM, John Howell wrote: > > > And i still don't understand the reason for "pants" roles! > > Persistence of tradition, mostly. In the early days there were > high-voice male roles written for castrati. Traditionally the > pants-role characters were callow young men (but not prepubescent). > Before long, female singers were sometimes cast in these roles, if no > castrato was available. Composers who wrote the roles understood that > they might be sung by a woman or a castrato. Gradually, the castrati > were phased out and the roles were sung only by women. Composers > continued the tradition of writing pants roles for young male > characters, even long after there were no more castrati. (The > tradition of casting non-castrated males in these roles is actually a > newer tradition.)
I'm anaware of any opera roles written for castrati that are anything other than major, adult male roles. I can't think of any where the castrato is specified for a young man's role. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
