Michael Maniaci: Mozart Arias for Male Soprano

This is quite an unsettling recording. It's as though we have opened a door on another world. Here is a man singing entirely comfortably in the two octaves above middle C – that's about a sixth above a countertenor's range. It's probably the nearest we have to the sound of the castrato voice. Michael Maniaci says his vocal cords did not thicken in the way of most men and this allows him to sing works specifically written for the great castrati of the baroque and classical eras. He is persuasive in numbers from Idomeneo , Lucio Silla , La clemenza di Tito and in the great solo motet, Exultate Jubilate , but while the voice is effortless, with no hint of a break into falsetto, I can't say it's particularly beautiful.