Abstract
The rise and fall of castrati in Europe remains one of the mysteries of human behaviour, especially as it links crime and music. Similar to sexual abuse, homosexuality, misogyny and paedophilia, the castration of young boys was clouded in secrecy and covered up by the Roman Catholic Church. In this chapter, I ask why and by whom the practice of castrating boys to preserve their high voices—something that would now be considered as severe child abuse—was tolerated in previous centuries. I analyze the link between music and this form of violence as well as its legitimation to examine in what way the phenomenon of castrati singers contributes to our understanding of crime.
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Siegel, D. (2021). Castrati: Child Abuse and the Search for Musical Perfection. In: Siegel, D., Bovenkerk, F. (eds) Crime and Music. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49878-8_4
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