31. He was a boy soprano prodigy, and later made his career as a castrato . 32. He also released a book The Last Castrato under the name J . Wolf Sanchez. 33. Scarlatti befriended the castrato singer Farinelli, a fellow Neapolitan also enjoying royal patronage in Madrid. 34. Some claim that Handel wrote the Air in London in 1750 for the castrato Gaetano Guadagni. 35. The castrato is an entirely different " instrument . " I am not condoning the practice. 36. Apolloni and Cesti adapted the title role ( originally sung by a castrato ) for Masotti. 37. This is opera mirroring the myth, at least, of the castrato 's sexual potency. 38. Eighteen years earlier, Carlo and Riccardo watched as an itinerant trumpet player humiliated a young castrato . 39. The production starred soprano Maria Giovanna Gasparini as Cleopatra VII and castrato Paolo Bedeschi as Julius Caesar. 40. The role of Orfeo, originally for alto castrato , went to soprano castrato, then to countertenor.
