Salon d'Hercule - The Three Countertenors

Cultural

The return of the great virtuosity contest between the three countertenors.

With a trio as extraordinary as that formed by Samuel Mariño, Théo Imart and Rafał Tomkiewicz, the audience is in for a high-flying competition.

In Baroque Europe, castrati had an extraordinary place: they were the first ‘stars’ in the history of music. Almost all Italian and trained at the conservatories of Naples, they dedicated themselves to opera or to serving the most prestigious princely chapels, as far afield as the Vatican and the Chapelle Royale in Versailles, often combining the two jobs.

In many opera productions and sacred oratorios, from Vienna to London, castrati systematically took the title role (in Rome, all the female roles) and several important roles, creating a veritable competition on the stage. It was an escalation of virtuosity and emotion between the singers, with the public acting as referee, as much through its requests for encore performances as through the sumptuous gifts offered to the most adored. The opera was regularly supplemented by the ‘suitcase’ arias that the most sought-after castrati brought with them to shine.