[THEATRE].
Velluti in Speculum - or - The Chorus Singers Triumphant. Before...and...After.
"POOH! POOH! I CONSIDER IT A TRUMPERY DEFENCE - HE MUST PAY THE GIRLS"
Rare. Not in the British Museum or a Yale. There is an example in the V & A in London but we have not traced any others.
A satire on the “last great castrato”, Giovanni Battista Velluti (1780-1861) who was widely celebrated at first but received criticism for his performances on the London stage and further compounded his unpopularity by refusing to pay the women in his chorus the same wage as the men.
Velluti was born in Pausula (now known as Corridonia, inland on the Adriatic coast near Marche) and castrated for medical reasons at the age of eight and performed in a number of prominent castrato roles in Italy before coming to London in 1825 where - to an audience who were not used to hearing a castrato - received a hostile reception when he performed in Il crociato in Egitto at the King’s Theatre.
