Angels and Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera, 1600-1900

A riveting history of the early male and female sopranos for whom many of the greatest roles in opera were written

During its first two centuries, opera was dominated by sopranos. There were male sopranos, or castrati, whose supercharged voices (female vocal cords powered by male lungs) were capable of feats of vocalism that are hard to imagine today. And there were female sopranos, or prima donnas, whose long battle for social acceptance and top billing was crowned in the early nineteenth ...