Alessandro Moreschi (
1858-
1922) was director of papal music and the
Sistine Chapel choir at the
Vatican and probably the last of the
castrati. Moreschi is the only
castrato whose voice has been recorded.
The castrati were a dying breed, and
Thomas Edison was determined to capture the voice of the last remaining specimen. From
1902 to
1904, Edison made 12 cylinder recordings of Moreschi’s voice. Edison also recorded Moreschi’s boss,
Pope Leo XIII, praising the castrato to the skies, the first recording of a pope. These recordings are available on
CD.
The Vatican’s official position on castrati was that they were not actually castrati at all, but intact singers singing
falsetto. After Moreschi’s death, they refused to do an autopsy which would have proven that the singer had all his original parts.