Martha Feldman, "Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome" (Zone Books, 2026)

New Books in Biography & Memoir · Mar 22, 2026 · 39m

Around 1830, opera houses stopped using castrati, and Rome and the Vatican became home to their glorious singing, engineered by surgery and intensive vocal training. Castrati were long mired in secrecy, obfuscations, and lies about their origin and conditions, not least the last of them, Alessandro Moreschi. In Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome (Zone Books, 2026), musicologist Professor Martha Feldman declines to accept these deep-seated mysteries and concealments. After a decade and more of digging through archives and family histories comes her exciting…