Like all castrati, Gaetano Berenstadt's hormones had gone crazy, but Berenstadtis were particularly strong. With a height of about 185 cm, he is said to have had 130 cm long legs, arms that were far too short and a corpulent belly; a field day for the caricaturists. But when he stood on the opera stage and sang, he was idolised.

Paris, London, Naples, Venice… and Lisbon! The cartography of the (late) baroque music of Europe gives an ever better overview also of the musical happenings in the Portuguese capital in the 18th century. The revival of the Portuguese musical heritage is one of the main activities of the Divino Sospiro orchestra under its director Masssimo Mazzeo. A particularly worthwhile discovery is the composer Pedro Antonio Avondano (1714-1782), descended from a dynasty of musicians of Italian origin who were active in Lisbon in the 18th century.

These Stabat maters represent a deep-rooted exploration of the solemnity of the sacred and the operatic aspect of musical writing, both in the sombre and plaintive tonality of F minor. Comparing these masterpieces, that of Antonio Vivaldi (1712) and that of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1736), allowing them to resonate in the acoustics of the Royal Chapel of the Château de Versailles, just as they could have been heard in the 18th century, inspires and awakens a desire for balance between internalised faith – spirituality, and externalised faith – splendour. Pergolesi's work was very popular in France. Given on the occasion of the feast of the Virgin, the Stabat mater dolorosa is based on a 13th century liturgical text by Jacopone da Todi, reintroduced by Pope Benedict XIII in 1727.