Cecilia Bartoli: Sacrificium Bartoli/Il Giardino Armonico/Antonini/Simone Kermes: Lava Kermes/Le Musiche Nove/Osele | CD review

(Decca)/(Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)One wonders what Freud would have made of Cecilia Bartoli's latest album, which takes her fascination with castrated men to levels both novel and troubling. Entitled Sacrificium, it purports to be an examination of 18th-century castrato culture that informs us how "musical instruments of unprecedented beauty" were created "out of mutilated boys". In reality, much of it is a disturbing exercise in prurience. The illustrations for the sleeve notes show Bartoli's he...

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