‘An infinity of factions’: Opera in eighteenth-century Britain and the undoing of society

It seems fair to say that we are enmeshed in an Age of Reconstruction. Whatever groans the shibboleth of ‘authenticity’ may elicit from musicians and musicologists, the film industry’s leap for the bandwagon is proof of the principle that Period Pieces Pay. Of the recent spate of feature films set in the eighteenth century, one in particular has marketed itself through its reconstructive credentials. The technologies that allow us to remodel our bodies, and revive old recordings on compact disc, also allowed the makers of Farinelli, Il Castrato to reach back and breathe new life into the voice of the long-dead castrati.