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Castrati
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
At an Italian royal court, Prince Enzo asks for a new way to make music special. Two parents present their son Antonio, whose beautiful high voice comes with a disturbing explanation.
The prince and his courtier grow increasingly horrified as the parents cheerfully describe what they have done. Antonio’s silent reactions undermine their sales pitch, and a musician’s question sets up an unexpectedly familiar musical finale.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 6
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Was it fun or not so fun?
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:02
Mateo
Okay, buona sera, welcome to the palazzo. Now, now everybody gonna be a little quiet because of the prince. He wanna say a little something, okay?
- 00:11
Prince Enzo
Grazie, Matteo.
- 00:12
Mateo
Oh, prego, prego.
- 00:14
Prince Enzo
Now, as you all know, it's the Renaissance, and I love the music. But if there was anything that could make the music a little more special, I would love it even more.
- 00:23
Mateo
Ah, yes, and that is why I invited the people to come up with new ideas for how to make the music even more special.
- 00:30
Lute Player
See, Prince Enzo, I have come up with a little lute but it got a three neck, so you can really shred.
- 00:41
Prince Enzo
Okay, okay, not so bad, not so good.
- 00:45
Antonio's mother
And Prince Enzo, Prince Enzo, if we could just jump in for a second, we would love for you to meet our son Antonio.
- 00:56
Antonio's father
Yeah, we think you're really gonna love our son Antonio, he's very special. Antonio, come on out.
- 01:09
Prince Enzo
Well, what do you have to say to me, Antonio?
- 01:12
Antonio's mother
Oh, he a little shyer, Antonio. He a much more comfortable singing.
- 01:18
Antonio's father
Yeah, go ahead and sing for Prince Enzo, Antonio. You're gonna love this.
- 01:22
Incredible is that.
- 01:41
Prince Enzo
Wow, that is very beautiful singing.
- 01:44
Antonio's mother
And did you notice how high his voice was?
- 01:47
Prince Enzo
I did, yes. Yes, it was the only thing I noticed, yes.
- 01:51
Antonio's mother
Yes, yes, yes.
- 01:52
Antonio's mother
Well, what if I had told you that any boy could sing like this? All we had to do was have him castrated.
- 02:02
Prince Enzo
Sorry, what was that?
- 02:04
Antonio's father
Antonio is what we're calling a castrato. It's a new technique we've been experimenting with.
- 02:11
Antonio's mother
Yeah, it's nothing crazy. You just castrate your son before puberty so he's a voice I never drop.
- 02:20
Prince Enzo
Wait, explain this again.
- 02:22
Antonio's father
Okay, well, uh, you know how you listen to a boy sing, and you think, oh, he should sing like this forever. But then he goes through the puberty, and his voice drop down, it's so loud.
- 02:32
Antonio's mother
Yeah, but for a castrato, that never gonna happen. Show them, Antonio.
- 02:36
Prince Enzo
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 02:38
Antonio's father
No, no, no, he mean show them with a song.
- 02:41
Antonio (the castrato)
Me say, me...
- 02:43
Antonio's father
I mean, come on. That is like a freaky little angel, huh?
- 02:53
Antonio's mother
We are so proud of you, Antonio.
- 02:55
Antonio's father
So proud.
- 02:59
Prince Enzo
And, uh, does the boy like what you did to him?
- 03:03
Antonio's father
You mean the castration?
- 03:05
Prince Enzo
Yes, I think you know he mean the castration.
- 03:08
Antonio's mother
I-I don't know if Antonio even notice. Do you notice the castration, Antonio?
- 03:15
Antonio's father
Antonio, the castration, was it, uh, fun or no so fun? Hmm? Fun? No so fun?
- 03:24
Antonio's mother
You know, I think he just don't like to talk. He prefers to see.
- 03:27
Antonio's father
Yeah.
- 03:28
Prince Enzo
No, I, uh, I think he is staring off a dead-eyed because he cut his nuts off.
- 03:34
Antonio's father
No, no, no. It's not like that at all.
- 03:37
Antonio's mother
Yeah, we're not a monster. We never cut off nothing.
- 03:40
Prince Enzo
Oh, well, that's good.
- 03:41
Antonio's father
Yeah, yeah. We never cut. We're just a twist.
- 03:46
Antonio's mother
Yeah.
- 03:48
Antonio's father
Yeah.
- 03:51
Antonio's mother
You see, we twist.
- 03:54
Prince Enzo
I-I-I'm sorry, a-a-a-a-a twist?
- 03:57
Antonio's mother
Ah, si, si, si, si, si, si, si. We just take the boy when he's eight or nine year old, and we put him into a, coma si dice, opium induced coma?
- 04:06
Prince Enzo
Opium induced coma.
- 04:11
Antonio's father
Yeah, and then we take his little gonad, and we just, we give him a little twist.
- 04:16
Antonio's father
Yeah. But Luis, we are, we twist.
- 04:19
Antonio's mother
Like a little twist. And we twist, and we twist, and we twist some more, until the little gonad is basically a pop right off. It's easy.
- 04:29
Antonio's father
The little gonad yell, I give up, I give up, I don't want to go back no more.
- 04:35
Antonio's mother
And then two week later, Antonio wake up, and he got a beautiful high pitched singing voice forever. Right, Antonio?
- 04:41
Antonio (the castrato)
Yep.
- 04:44
Prince Enzo
Can I ask, what did you do with the gonad after it a pop off?
- 04:48
Antonio's mother
Well, we put it in the icebox in case we ever want to reverse the operation.
- 04:52
Antonio's father
but funny story the dog he learned how to open up the iceberg and he make a big meal out of the gonad and now the dog he bark like this
- 05:08
Lute Player
and I have a question as well
- 05:12
Prince Enzo
ah yes Kenan
- 05:16
Lute Player
um does um does antonio write the music also
- 05:23
Antonio's father
ah he does uh antonio you want to share the original song you wrote about the dogonad experience
- 05:29
Antonio (the castrato)
sure
- 05:29
Antonio (the castrato)
come on baby
- 05:49
in stars just in time for a columbus day
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
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