How to Use castrato in a Sentence

castrato

noun
  • Even by the time Moreschi was born, the castrato voice had long since gone out of fashion in the world of opera.
    — Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 15 July 2019
  • Lit by candlelight, the play with music centers on a castrato who gives up his career to sing privately for a Spanish king.
    — Mark Kennedy, The Seattle Times, 6 Sep. 2017
  • Guido is a castrati, a male singer who underwent castration before puberty to preserve his soprano singing voice.
    — Mathew Rodriguez, Them., 12 Nov. 2025
  • Feldman provides an exceptional guide to a culture that produced castrati only to discard them, and to the haunted sense of too-lateness that left Moreschi outside his own life.
    — Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Farinelli, the castrato at the center of Claire van Kampen’s baroque drama about the healing powers of music, sings his final solo.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2018
  • This gentle love story set in a forest glen was written for a low female voice and a castrato, a male singer castrated as a child to preserve his ability to produce the high, pure notes of a boy soprano.
    — Marina Harss, New York Times, 2 May 2017
  • Many castrati came from modest backgrounds and were propelled into their careers by families eager for some kind of opportunity in the Catholic Church.
    — Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 15 July 2019
  • Unlike traditional castrati, Costanzo did not come to his high vocal register after having had his testicles crushed between stones.
    — Henry Alford, New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Arianna takes a wife for the new emperor, which tracks musically since Handel wrote Anastasio for a castrato voice that well suits a women.
    — Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2022
  • Impoverished families were sometimes willing to give their sons to the Church; successful castrati made a good living, so the sacrifice might have been considered a sound investment.
    — Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
  • The real Farinelli was a castrato, his high voice resulting from childhood castration, a once common procedure starting in the 1500s.
    — Sopan Deb, New York Times, 29 Jan. 2018
  • Gamblers, occultists, harlots, castrato singers, and masked revelers populated the galleries alongside beautifully crafted wall sconces, ball gowns, and porcelain tureens.
    — Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Mar. 2018
  • Not least of these is the chance to hear countertenor Iestyn Davies perform a number of baroque opera arias by Handel, in what's probably as close as possible to the castrato sound without using a boy singer or mixing in a soprano.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Dec. 2017
  • And the superstars of Baroque opera were castratos — boys castrated before puberty to retain their high voices — the best of whom intriguingly combined a feminine range and sound quality with heroic, masculine power.
    — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 14 July 2017
  • At the start of the twentieth century, only nine castrati remained in the Papal Chapel, and a 1903 decree by Pius X banned new recruits, not that many would have been forthcoming.
    — Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Mark Rylance stars in his wife Claire van Kampen's play with music as the 18th-century Spanish monarch whose chronic melancholia could be soothed only by the heavenly singing of the celebrated castrato.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Dec. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'castrato.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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