And the problem is not one of gender-identity choice or other cultural preference. It is biological, grounded in the differences between male and female vocal cords in length, thickness, and muscular constitution, complemented by the intersexual differences in the size of the spaces available for amplification and enrichment of tone (“resonance,” “quality”), and further by the variations in strength and flexibility of male and female respiratory systems. Taken together, these differences account for the facts that male voices are pitched lower and female ones higher; that most of the male range therefore falls in the lower sound family we term “chest register” while the female one lies predominantly in the higher “head register” group; and finally that while the voices of men and women can cross over into one another’s areas of dominance (and must do so to develop length of range and avoid timbral monotony), the melding of the families can be a quarrelsome proceeding, owing primarily to the discrepancy in strength between the upper notes of the lower family and the lower ones of the upper. One cannot get around these realities—unless one intervenes, as the Italian castrators did, in the biological situation.

There is no hope of recapturing the castrato sound or range extension, contrived as it was from the arresting of vocal cord development at the pre-pubescent stage while the capacities for resonance and breath reached their full adult development. If you have a good mind’s ear, you can glean something from boy-soprano renditions of “Der Hölle Rache,” of which a quick search turns up a half-dozen online versions. These vary as to intonation, flexibility, and quality—Jacques Imbrailo’s has the prettiest tone by way of some vibrato, while Alois Muhlbacher’s has the most tonal body and is the only one to escape the mechanical trick-pony syndrome by showing a performer’s temperament and a sense of what the piece is about. Note that all of them can negotiate the high staccati and the top F. But perhaps the rendition by Robin Schlotz is the most useful here. He pumps the breath rather alarmingly, but has a sturdy, pure tone and, unlike the others, a brassy strength on low notes (he was fourteen at the time of recording, and thus close to the onset of the transition). Auralize, if you can, that sound and capability, but louder, from a strong Italian boy’s throat and augmented by the expanded color range of the adult resonance tract, and you will begin to approximate the timbral spectrum of the sexually mutilated male voice. (Schlotz, and a couple of the others, would have been prime candidates for the surgery.) Lang was a little bemused by the fact that settecento listeners could hear the castrato sound as “natural” and those of their falsetto imitators as “unnatural.” But given the physical circumstances of both groups of singers, that is perfectly logical. The well-trained castrato was making full use of his biological potential, whereas the falsettist, however technically advanced, was suppressing the dominant function of his voice in favor of the secondary one, resulting in a voice that was, well, false. The falsettists, the best of whom must surely have been no less accomplished than our own, could not compete. They still can’t, and should be put out to pasture in favor of well-cast women, tenors, and baritones. I’ll be happy to see some of my taxes go to a retraining program.^(I)