He was a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century.
I am a middle-aged-white dude-high school English teacher in full Hail Mary mode, going long on the MFA, seconds left in the game.He was one of the greatest singers in the history of opera.
Large gospel choirs make me cry. I stopped listening to opera when I quit drinking.
He studied in Naples under Nicola Porpora.
I studied in Athens, (Ohio) under Dr. Bartolomeo Martello. You got a good heart Antonio, but you got nothing going on up here, he said, poking me in the forehead.
At age 15 he made his debut at Rome in Porpora’s Serenata Angelica.
At age 15 I made my theatrical debut running the spotlight for a community theater production of Guys and Dolls.
He formed a lifelong friendship with the poet/librettist Pietro Metastasio.
I formed a lifelong friendship with a guy who played frisbee with Steve Hicks. Jeffrey Dhamer's first victim.
His reputation spread throughout Italy and to Vienna and London.
My reputation spread enough to where I had to go out of town to find a bar I wasn't banned from.
He was admired for his pure, powerful voice, his technical proficiency, his skill in florid embellishment.
I have a recurring dream where I am the most envied of auctioneers selling bullets, Rothko's and steer.
In 1737 he went to Spain, where his singing alleviated the deep-seated melancholia of Philip V, nightly for nearly 10 years.
In 2003 I moved to Montreal, where my unemployment aggravated the blossoming romantic indifference of my girlfriend, daily for a about a year.
He was dismissed from his post at court by Charles III for political differences.
I defended myself in court once and had the charges dismissed. My attorney friend who I couldn't afford said a free thing: know the answers beforehand.
He accumulated great wealth and spent the rest of his life peacefully in Italy.
At the bottom of my psyche, I regenerated the remains, great clanking its chains and gnashing its incisors, of an 8 year old singing "Tiny Bubble" for his daily ration of cold beans and tortillas.
