Aside from having the dubious honor of being the last castrato, Moreschi's vocal talent leaves something to be desired.

Is it any wonder the castrati died out? I mean, how could they breed?

Ha ha, nomis. :P

I thought the Wikipedia article's comments on the apparent lack of talent were quite interesting.

Critical opinion is divided about Moreschi's recordings; some say they are of little interest other than the novelty of preserving the voice of a castrato, and that Moreschi was a mediocre singer, while other critics detect the remains of a quite talented singer who was unfortunately past his prime by the time he recorded. It should, however, be noted that the age range during which Moreschi was recorded, 44 to 46, would be considered by many classical singers to be the time during which a singer's voice would be at its prime. Yet others feel that he was a very fine singer indeed, especially considering his age at the time and the fact that when Moreschi was young, those capable of training castrati properly had already died.

It should also be mentioned that Moreschi's vocal technique can grate upon modern ears; many of his seemingly imperfect vocal attacks are in fact grace notes, launched from as much as a tenth below the note up to the note itself. Furthermore, the dated aesthetic of Moreschi's singing, which involved extreme passion in the singing and a perpetual type of sob, often sounds bizarre to the modern listener and can be misinterpreted as technical weakness or an aging voice.

I understand the aesthetic of the era, but his grace notes are flubbed; his breath support is weak,

But still interesting.

Yeah, I was having a hard time hearing them as simply grace notes. It sure does sound awful.

Couple other things are going on here, too. One is that the "78 RPM" recording this is taken from is pretty poor. There is obvious wow and flutter, on several periods, as the recording progresses from beginning to end.

Next is that a castrato never developed the full hyiod bone or Adam's apple (male larynx) of a typical man, which did prevent their voices from deepening at puberty, but also limited the amount of "throat" technique they could manage. They never had the power or depth of vibrato that tenors or contra-tenors or fully developed male falsetto voices could manage. In particular, the vibrato evidenced here is much more dependent on diaphram control than throat control, and so creates a tradeoff for pitch accuracy. The castrato voice is not truly a boy's voice, but it is not a man's voice at all.

An interesting link, and for what it is, a good performance, in my opinion.

Jeez, talk about overbearing stage parents!