At this time of year, it’s natural for one’s thoughts to turn to…castrati. (Isn’t it?)
The castrati craze peaked in Italy in the eighteenth century, when a distressingly large number of musical lads from ambitious families had unfortunate encounters with pigs. (Castration, even of your nearest and dearest, was illegal.) Castrati were never very popular in England, where their existence was naturally equated with foreign, Papist nastiness. Only the superstar of the castrati, Farinelli (real name Carol Broschi), was wholeheartedly accepted and applauded.

So what did a castrato sound like? We don’t really know. There’s a recording of Alessandro Moreschi, The Last Castrato, made very early in the twentieth century when he was old and past his (debatable) prime. What we do know is that the singers were tall, with huge lung capacity and physical stamina, and with a vocal range of three and a half octaves and superb technique

Check out this excerpt from the movie Farinelli (and isn’t he a handsome young…thing). He’s singing a Handel aria. Is it a real voice? Yes and no. The voices of countertenor Derek Lee Ragin and coloratura Ewa Godlewska were digitally blended to create this astonishing sound. More info here for you techies here. Great movie, by the way, even if it tinkers massively with the truth–sex, drugs and arias. More about it here.

Consequently, very few singers today can handle the castrato repertoire, with one notable exception–mezzo-sopranoVivica Genaux. Here she is performing an aria by Farinelli’s brother, Qual guerriero in campo armato.
(Isn’t youtube great!)

So, in response, tell me if you’ve seen Farinelli, or about your other favorite musical movie, or what sort of Christmas cookies you’re making.

Janet

I’m still fighting this stupid sinus infection and feeling very holiday-challenged. All I really want to do right now is curl up under the covers.

When I feel this way I crave Comfort TV, less caloric than comfort food and possibly a bit healthier. My Comfort TV consists of makeover, decorating and cooking shows, and a smattering of comedy. Some of my favorites are What Not to Wear, (both the American and British versions), Changing Rooms (crazy decor, cute designers and all the different British accents–what’s not to love?), Emeril and Whose Line is it Anyway?.

The one drawback to Comfort TV at this season is the commercials, which bring out my inner Scrooge like nothing else. Tops on my Most Egregious Commercials List:

• Singing greeting cards held by mute human beings swaying to the tinny electronic tunes. Blech.
• The one that says it’s not your clothes (music, favorite color, neighborhood, etc…) that say the most about you, it’s your watch. Blech again. (Did they not think to include the books you read? Philistines.)
• Electronic learning toy commercials that imply your child will not get into college if you don’t buy them. (How about buying them books instead? How about actually reading with them?)

The good thing is one can escape to commercial-free Comfort Reading. My favorite providers are Georgette Heyer and Loretta Chase. When I’m done with this post I’m slinking back to bed with LORD PERFECT.

Do you indulge in Comfort TV or Comfort Reading? What are your favorites?

And which holiday commercials bug you the most?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

P.S. The picture is of Bill Gorman playing Scrooge at the Cider Mill Playhouse in Endicott, NY and looking a good bit better than I do at the moment!

Announcement! Next Tuesday, our own delightful Regency time-traveler, Bertram St. James (a.k.a. Bertie the Beau), will join us to blog about his thoughts on the Regency Christmas anthology Mistletoe Kisses. (He promises to read it by then.) So do join us!

Now, on with today’s very important, very serious debate, in which YOU will decide the fate of….. (Drumroll please)…. JANE AUSTEN!!!

Okay, not really. But you will really decide the fate of…. THE JANE AUSTEN ACTION FIGURE!!! (Pictured here. Genius sold separately.)

Just answer the following questions, and the majority will determine her future! (After all, ActionFigureLand is a democracy. Hmm…. Now that I think of it, if it is, it must be one in which the actual action figures don’t get a vote. Not sure that’s fair. Then again, I’m not an action figure, so who cares!)

QUESTION ONE: If the Jane Austen action figure sits down one day and reads all of her own novels — oh, and lets throw in some Heyer for good measure, surely Austen would have read her given the chance — so, she reads all of Austen and Heyer, feels very romantic, and decides to find her true love.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps), she finds she has only three choices. So…. WHO DOES SHE PICK?

Does she pick the Sherlock Holmes Action Figure?

Or the Casanova Action Figure?

Or does she go for Herr Beethoven’s Action Figure?

And which of the three would give her the most talented offspring???

Now… for QUESTION TWO!!!!!! This one has two parts.

A. If the Jane Austen Action Figure gets into a fight with Barbie, who wins?

Keep in mind that Barbie may be more physically active… But Jane probably knows how to gouge with her quill (as well as her wit). Who’s the victor? To whom the spoils? (If Jane wins, she gets all Barbie’s shoes.)

B. If the Jane Austen Action Figure had a knock-down, drag-out fight with the Marie Antoinette Action Figure, who would triumph, and who would be guillotined???

Ooh, I so love this doll. Ejector head!!!

(Amanda, if you don’t have this one already, you need it!!! Hello Kitty wants to play with it!!!)

Cara
Cara King, author of MY LADY GAMESTER
Starring the Atalanta James Action Figure

Is it Byron?
Almost two years ago, I saw this in a local antique store, advertised as an 19th century hand-drawing. Believe it or not, I passed it up, then decided I was nuts and went back and purchased it for about $40.00. I refrained from saying to the cashier, “Do you think this is Lord Byron? I really think this is Lord Byron.”

When I went to England in June 2005, I looked everywhere for a similar portrait of Byron, especially when we visited Newstead Abbey, but I never saw anything like it. So I am leaving it up to you. I have reversed some well-known Byron portraits and put them in black and white, for comparison.

Is my sketch Lord Byron?

This is what I imagine. A young Regency miss was infatuated with Lord Byron. Perhaps she even glimpsed him in Mayfair, at a ball or the theatre. She and her girlfriends sighed over his Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, bought engravings of his portrait at the local print shop. She did what I did when I was a teenager. She drew her own picture of Byron, putting him in exotic dress, like she would have imagined Child Harold to wear.

Of course, when I was a teenager, the hearthrob I drew a portrait of was Paul McCartney of the Beatles. I’d scan that too, if I knew where it was. I still have it someplace. I just went on a long search and found all sorts of other things (including my photo of William Shatner as Captain Kirk) but no Paul McCartney.

Weigh in here with your opinions. Do I have a portrait of Byron?
Confess. Who would you have drawn in those tender years of infatuation?

Cheers!
Diane (who has so far refrained from drawing Gerard Butler–or anyone else for a brazillion years)

Like Megan, I’m just not sure what to post about today! In the month of December it’s like my brain takes off for a vacation (skiing in Taos, or something) while my body is forced to stay home and work and get ready for the holidays. I’ve also started working on book #2 for this new Harlequin contract (up to page 75!) and it’s preoccupying me quite a bit. So, I’ll just talk about it. Or rather, one small historical aspect of it.

The new story is Regency-set, and hopefully kicks off a new series called The Muses of Mayfair. You see, there’s this scholar and antiquarian who has a bunch of daughters, all named after the Muses. Book One (or WIP), The Alabaster Goddess, is the story of the eldest Muse, Calliope, a half-Greek earl, and the shenanigans surrounding a stolen ancient statue of the goddess Artemis. I just finished writing a scene where the characters go to view the Elgin Marbles (where the villain is introduced, the hero and heroine argue, and…But that’s for later!)

On the Splendors of the Regency tour Diane and I went on, we were lucky enough to have a free afternoon to tour the British Museum and see the Marbles for ourselves (that’s Diane and our friend Julie Halperson in one of the pics. I don’t know who the other people are–they just wouldn’t get out of the way for me to take the photo!).

My main source for the scene in my own story was a volume I picked up in the Museum shop, The Elgin Marbles by B.F. Cook (British Museum Press, 1997). It’s slim, less than 100 pages, but full of great illustrations and lots of info about the Parthenon, the sculptures, and how they came to be acquired by the British Museum. Long story made very short–around 1799 the Earl of Elgin (Thomas Bruce) was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Porte of Selem III Sultan of Turkey. A group of artists and architects sort of tagged along to Athens (then a small, seedy town, where the grand Acropolis was being used a Turkish fortress) to work on documenting and, if possible, restoring the Parthenon. The condition of these treasures was not good; much had been damaged or destroyed in an explosion, or carried off to be used as building materials elsewhere. By 1802, the first of the sculptures, from the metope section or excavated from the ground, were on their way to England. On April 22, 1811, after many (mis)adventures, the last of them left Athens on the ship Hydra, accompanied by Lord Byron.

After residing in various locations, including Elgin’s home on Park Lane (in a shed!), the Duchess of Portland’s, the Duke of Richmond’s, and the Duke of Devonshire’s Burlington House, the sculptures were finally bought by the Nation and vested in the Trustees of the British Museum in 1816, for 35,000 pounds. (The earl, who was in dire financial straits by then, having lost his rich wife, was hoping for at least 70,000). The ‘Temporary Elgin Room’ (where my characters view them!) was opened in 1817 and remained in use for 14 years.

So that’s my “history lesson for the day”! 🙂 What are some things you’ve seen on travels, or read about in books, that inspired you? Any favorite travels spots (I need to live vicariously since my brain is off skiing and I’m slaving away over the Hello Kitty notebooks!)?

p.s. Another good read is Susan Nagel’s Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin. It has been a while since I read it (it came out in 2005), but as I recall it dealt more with her scandalous divorce than the events surrounding the Marbles, but was a fascinating story.