在十八世纪的意大利，瑞加多是一位古典音乐作曲家，为了使他的弟弟法拉利内利的高音歌声不会因为成长而消失，不惜在法内利孩童时实施宫刑，结果法内利成为了伟大的歌唱家。他的醉人的歌声及纯真的魅力迷倒了不少美女，瑞加多乘机假冒法拉内利之兄与她们勾搭，并在感情和事业上处处控制着纯洁的法拉内利，为此法拉内利付出了他的一生……
       亨德尔意外获知farinelli成为castrato的真相，并在farinelli演唱的间歇告诉了他，他悲痛不已，从此无法原谅他的兄长对他的所作所为，认为什么都无法弥补这个伤害，三年以后他的兄长完成了合唱组曲，在宫廷的院子里喊他，他很痛苦，不想见他，但是晚上他乘兄长熟睡把组曲的乐谱偷偷拿了回去，第二天再爱丽丝的劝说下他原谅了他的兄长，此后就应该是在西班牙皇家花园那段日食的故事了吧，当太阳被黑影吞没，国王一句把太阳召回吧，他又唱起组曲中的《任我流泪》，他的兄长嘴边含着微笑割腕自杀，但是他并没有死，当他醒来时，他看到farinelli就睡在他身旁，于是又安心的睡去，早上，他醒来了，farinelli不再身旁，他起来找farinelli，看到他和爱丽丝在一起，给爱丽丝留了个孩子作为对以前行为的补偿，然后就离开了，呵呵，和爱丽丝应该幸福的在一起了，我也希望是这样。
      故事主人翁瑞卡多与卡洛柏劳斯基兄弟确有其人，哥哥为了让弟弟保持着他独特的童声歌唱天分，亲自担任他的演唱经纪人和专属作曲家。但当弟弟成为十八世纪著名的声乐家之后，他对音乐有更高的追求，已不满足于哥哥写作的平凡的乐曲，竟偷偷跑到敌对的宫廷歌剧院中演唱更完美的歌剧，兄弟二人因而完全反目。
法里乃利原名卡尔洛·布罗斯基，据说他10岁时从马背上摔下而失去性器官，从而将童年时代天使般的嗓音一直保存了下来。1722年，法里乃利在那不勒斯的一次即兴音乐比赛中击败了一个著名的小号吹奏家从而名声大噪。英国皇家宫廷作曲家汉德尔慕名请法里乃利为英王演唱。法里乃利无法忍受汉德尔对合作者哥哥里卡尔多的排斥，并朝汉德尔的脸吐唾沫，这更使他四海闻名。法里乃利经常和哥哥配合完成勾引女人的“两部曲”：法里乃利先行引诱，而后由哥哥做爱。1934 年，法里乃利在巡演时认识了漂亮的女子亚历山德拉·莱丽丝。她请他去伦敦拯救被汉德尔的皇家歌剧院压迫的诺布尔斯乐团。在伦敦，二人产生了强烈的爱情，哥哥里卡尔多与过去一样与法里乃利配合。随后法里乃利对哥哥的音乐水平表示怀疑，并开始为汉德尔说话，伤心的里卡尔多终止了与他的合作。在汉德尔的引诱下，里卡尔多说出了真相：法里乃利小时是被里卡尔多阉割。里卡尔多割破手腕以示弥补自己的过错，兄弟俩最后一次同台演出。里卡尔多随后离开，留下了与法里乃利的共同之作：亚历山德拉肚子里的孩子。 

            Farinelli（法拉内利），是三百多年前意大利著名的阉伶歌手。据说，他演唱的歌曲难度极高，一些复杂技巧，诸如十度音程的跳进等，除了他以外，几乎无人敢于问津。那个时代的美声唱法教育大师曼奇尼曾经惊呼：“在我们的时代，没有任何人能够与他相比。”观众对他更是崇拜得五体投地：“天上有一个上帝，地上有一个法拉内利！”法拉内利不仅以其炉火纯青的歌声成为无可争议的欧洲一流歌唱家，而且以其高尚的人格和谦虚的品性，得到西班牙国王腓力五世的赏识在宫廷供职，其间，还兼管宫廷的外交事务和公共事务，并获得了西班牙最高骑士爵位。声名之高，获誉之隆，后来者无不望其项背。
如今的我们当然无缘亲耳听到他美妙的声音。但我们却能从一部电影中获得一些关于他的信息。这部电影就是《Farinelli》，中文译名《绝代妖姬》。这部电影是由意大利、比利时、法国合拍的，曾获得金球奖最佳外语片，凯撒奖最佳服装设计、最佳音响以及奥斯卡最佳外语片提名。值得一提的是，片中他的歌唱，在人间的确是没有的，因为那声音，是运用了现代先进电脑技术把几个不同声部的男声、女声和童声混合制作而出的，而那位三百多年前声名卓著的意大利歌唱家法拉内利的歌声，已经永远地尘封在历史的记忆里了。
      不得不说一句的是，到了现代，有假声男高音出现的作品并不多，而且假声男高音演唱者必须具备先天条件，加上日后苦练才能有所建树，所以假声男高音演唱家是屈指可数的稀世珍宝。尽管全球的假声男高音和次女高音们已经用尽全力尝试那些高难度的咏叹调，但是仍然有一些不可逾越的障碍。对假声男高音而言，声乐技术是最大的障碍。被誉为“新生的法里内利”的Angelo Manzotti是最强的假声男高音之一。对比他和薇薇卡演唱的“Riccardo Broschi: Son qual nave”，我们可以发现他在演唱这首难度最大的咏叹调的时候遇到了困难。而且他简化了一些特别困难的花腔片断，还在演唱中因为技术缘故出现了不少错误。对次女高音而言，阻止她们超越阉人歌手的问题有两个。第一个是关于肺活量的问题。法里内利（Farinelli）被证实有能力在一口气之内在一个音符上保持超过一分钟或者唱出250个音符（当今公认的最好的次女高音－巴托莉，在一个音符上一口气只能保持不到30秒。第二个问题有关音域。跟假声男高音相比，次女高音有更好的声乐技巧,但是她们不能达到男低音的音域。举例来说，有时阉人歌手咏叹调中的花腔片断可以低到G3。Manzotti（唯一留有录音的阉伶）的录音已经给了我们答案。在他的录音中，音域超过了三个八度。当然Farinelli正是他们永远无法逾越的障碍。

Armand : Don't you want to lose it?

Armand : I know nothing of God, or the Devil. I have never seen a vision nor learned a secret that will damn or save my soul. And as far as I know, after four hundred years, I am the oldest living vampire in the world.

Armand : Knew him well enough not to mourn his passing

Armand : Louis, I swear that I...

Armand : The world changes, we do not, there lies the irony that finally kills us.

Armand : They had forgotten the first lesson, that we are to be powerful, beautiful, and without regret.

Armand : What do you mean?

Armand : Yes.

Armand : You are beautiful my friend. Lestat must have wept when he made you.

Claudia : And if I cut my hair again?

Claudia : And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never ever grow up.

Claudia : But it wasn't always so. I had a mother once, and Louis: he had a wife. He was mortal same as she and so was I.

Claudia : Did you do it to me?

Claudia : Do it Louis, because I cannot, I haven't the strength. You saw to that when you made me.

Claudia : Goodnight sweet prince, may flights of devils wing you to your rest.

Claudia : How avant-garde.

Claudia : How did you do it?

Claudia : I came to make peace with you, even though you are the father of lies.

Claudia : I'll put you in your coffin!

Claudia : I'm not your daughter.

Claudia : It's time we were on our way. I'm hungry, and the city awaits.

Claudia : Locked together in hatred. But I can't hate you Louis. Louis my love, I was mortal to you. You gave me your immortal kiss you became my mother, and my father, and so I'm yours forever. But now it's time to end it, Louis. Now it's time to leave him.

Claudia : Louis what's happening to her?

Claudia : Louis.

Claudia : Madeleine, Louis is shy.

Claudia : No you would not Louis, danger holds you to me.

Claudia : One lesson you taught me. Never drink from the dead.

Claudia : Rats? When did you eat rats Louis?

Claudia : What do you mean?

Claudia : Where's mama?

Claudia : Which one of you did it? Which one of you did it? Which on of you made me the way I am?

Claudia : Who will take care of me my love, my dark angel, when you are gone?

Claudia : Why yours alone? Tell me how it was done.

Claudia : Yes, Father. At last we are even.

Claudia : You get rid of it.

Claudia : You have found your new companion Louis, You will make me mine.

Claudia : You made us what we are, didn't you?

Claudia : You... fed on me.

Daniel Molloy : Hmm. That's something I've never heard before. You mean this literally, I take it?

Daniel Molloy : I thought vampires didn't like the light.

Daniel Molloy : So a vampire can cry.

Daniel Molloy : So there are no vampires in Transylvania? No Dracula?

Daniel Molloy : So, what do you do?

Daniel Molloy : What a lucky break for me.

Daniel Molloy : You really believe this, don't you, that you're a vampire?

Daniel Molloy : You said you were waiting for me. What were you going to do? Kill me, drink my blood, all that stuff?

Lestat : And what if there is no hell, or they don't want us there? Ever think of that?

Lestat : Be glad I made you what you are. (grabs her throat with one hand) You'd be dead now if I hadn't, just like that damned corpse. Now, get rid of it. (releases her)

Lestat : Claudia, you have been a very, very naughty little girl.

Lestat : Don't be afraid. I'm going to give you the choice I never had.

Lestat : Evil is a point of view. God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are, none so like him as ourselves.

Lestat : Evildoers are easier, and they taste better.

Lestat : God, I swear you grow more like Louis each day. Then you'll be eating rats.

Lestat : Have you said your good-byes to the light?

Lestat : I am afraid, madam, my days are sacrosanct.

Lestat : I assume I need no introduction.

Lestat : I don't know any Hell.

Lestat : I like to do it. I enjoy it. Take your aesthete's; taste purer things; kill them swiftly, if you will, but do it. For do not doubt: you are a killer, Louis.

Lestat : I've drained you to the point of death. If I leave you here, you die. Or you can be young always, my friend, as we are now, but you must tell me: will you come or no?

Lestat : It will grow back again.

Lestat : It's so easy you almost feel sorry for them. You'll get used to killing. Just forget about that mortal coil. You'll become accustomed to it, all too quickly.

Lestat : It's your coffin, my love. Enjoy it. Most of us never get to know what it feels like.

Lestat : Lord, what I wouldn't give for a drop of good old-fashioned Creole blood.

Lestat : LOUIS! Put me in my coffin!

Lestat : Mama... mama has gone to Heaven, Chèrie, like that sweet lady right there. They all go to Heaven.

Lestat : Merciful death. How you love your precious guilt.

Lestat : No one could resist me, not even you, Louis.

Lestat : Oh Louis, Louis. Still whining Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that for centuries.

Lestat : Oh, yes, you are. You're mine and Louis' daughter now. You see, Louis was going to leave us, he was going to go away, but now he's not. Now, he's going to stay and make you happy.

Lestat : One happy family.

Lestat : Read her thoughts.

Lestat : Shh. Do you want to frighten our little daughter?

Lestat : Should we put out the light? And then put out the light. But once put out thy light, I cannot give it vital breath again. It needs must wither.

Lestat : Stop her, Louis.

Lestat : The dark gift is different for each of us.

Lestat : The way you are? A vampire gone insane that pollutes it's own bed?

Lestat : Their democratic flavor doesn't suit my palate, Louis.

Lestat : We are predators, Whose all seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment.

Lestat : What's wrong, my dear?

Lestat : Where do you think, my idiot friend? We're in a nice, filthy cemetery. Does this make you happy? Is this fitting, proper enough?

Lestat : Whining coward of a vampire that prowls the night killing rats and poodles; you could have finished us both.

Lestat : Why should I tell you? It's in my power.

Lestat : Yes, it is. Well, then you must be dead.

Lestat : You are a vampire who never knew what life was until it ran out in a big gush over your lips.

Lestat : You-you let me drink *dead blood*?

Lestat : Your body's dying. Pay no attention.

Lestat : [dancing around with the corpse of Claudia's mother] There's still life in the old lady yet.

Lestat : [smiling] And the more you tried, the more I wanted you.

Louis : 1791 was the year it happened. I was 24, younger than you are now, but times were different then. I was a man at that age: the master of a large plantation just south of New Orleans. I had lost my wife in childbirth. She and the infant had been buried less than half a year; I would have been happy to join them. I couldn't bear the pain of their loss: I longed to be released from it.

Louis : A little child she was, but also a fierce killer, now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child's demanding.

Louis : Absolutely. I was waiting for you in that alleyway: watching you watching me. And then you began to speak.

Louis : Ah, but I know you did. I know. You who regrets nothing, you who feels nothing, if that's all I have left to learn, I can do that on my own... and as much as your invitation may appeal to me, I *regretfully* decline.

Louis : All but us.

Louis : And you can teach me this?

Louis : Bear me no ill will my love we are now even.

Louis : Blood, I was to find, was a necessity as well. I woke the next evening with a hunger I had never felt.

Louis : But the world was a tomb to me, a graveyard of broken statues, and each of those statues resembled her face.

Louis : But there was a hell, and no matter where we moved to, I was in it.

Louis : Claudia.

Louis : Do you think I would let them harm you.

Louis : Fictions, my friend. The vulgar fictions of a demented Irishman.

Louis : For 30 years I had avoided that place. Yet I found my way back there with hardly an upward glance.

Louis : Forgive me if I have a lingering respect for life.

Louis : Her blood coursed through my veins sweeter than life itself. And as it did, Lestat's words made sense to me. I knew peace only when I killed and when I heard her heart in that terrible rhythm, I knew again what peace could be.

Louis : How do we seem to you? Do you find us beautiful, magical? Our white skin, our fierce eyes? "Drink" you ask me, do you have any idea of the thing you will become?

Louis : I can't.

Louis : I took your life. He gave you a new one.

Louis : I tried.

Louis : I walked all night, I walked as I had walked years before when my mind swarmed with guilt at the thought of killing. I had thought of all the things I had done, and couldn't undo. And I longed for a moments peace.

Louis : I'm a vampire.

Louis : I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't been human for two hundred years.

Louis : In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume.

Louis : It was a long, long time ago. Before you were born, and I don't recommend them.

Louis : Lestat killed two, sometimes three a night. A fresh young girl, that was his favorite for the first of the evening. For seconds, he preferred a gilded beautiful youth. But the snob in him loved to hunt in society, and the blood of the aristocrat thrilled him best of all.

Louis : Love holds you to me.

Louis : Most of all I longed for death. I know that now. I invited it. A release from the pain of living. My invitation was open to anyone. To the whore at my side, to the pimp that followed. But it was a vampire that accepted.

Louis : My God, I've failed again.

Louis : Once, maybe twice in his own eternity. Maybe it was to quench those tears forever that I took such revenge on them.

Louis : Perhaps lucky for the both of us.

Louis : She is dying. It happened to you too, but you were to young to remember.

Louis : So it was, when I'd given up the search for vampires, that a vampire found me.

Louis : That morning I was not yet a vampire, and I saw my last sunrise. I remember it completely, and yet I can't recall any sunrise before it. I watched its whole magnificence for the last time as if it were the first. And then I said farewell to sun light, and set out to become what I became.

Louis : The statue seemed to move, but didn't. The world had changed, yet stayed the same. I was a newborn vampire weeping at the beauty of the night.

Louis : Then out of curiosity, boredom, who knows what, I left the old world and came back to my America. And there, a mechanical wonder allowed me to see the sun rise for the first time in two hundred years. And what sunrises, seen as the human eye could never see them: silver at first, then, as the years progressed, in tones of purple, red, and my long lost blue.

Louis : Then what a pair we could make, but what if it's a lesson I don't care to learn.

Louis : They know about us. They watch us dine on empty plates and drink from empty glasses.

Louis : Thirty years had passed, yet her body remained that of an eternal child. Her eyes alone told the story of her age, staring out from under her doll-like curls, with a questioning that will one day need an answer.

Louis : Though the fire seemed to spread through the quarter, I stood on that deck, fearful he would come out again from the very river, like some monster, to destroy us both. And all the while, I thought, 'Lestat, you deserve your vengeance. You gave me the dark gift, and I delivered you into the hands of death for the second time.'

Louis : To be without regret?

Louis : Vampires pretending to be humans, pretending to be vampires.

Louis : We belong in hell.

Louis : We can't begin this way. Let me turn on the light.

Louis : We love it. I only wanted to prepare you.

Louis : We reached the Mediterranean. I wanted those waters to be blue, but they were black, nighttime waters, and how I suffered then, straining to recall the color that in my youth I had taken for granted.

Louis : What died in that room was not that woman. What has died is the last breath in me that was human.

Louis : What if all I have is my suffering, my regret?

Louis : Whatever happened to Lestat I do not know. I go on, night ever night. I feed on those who cross my path. But all my passion went with her golden hair. I'm a spirit of preternatural flesh. Detached. Unchangeable. Empty.

Louis : Where are we?

Louis : Why do you do this?

Louis : Why? So you can have that too? The heart that mourns her, her that you burnt to a cinder.

Louis : Yankees are not to your taste?

Louis : Yes, but you needn't be concerned with that now.

Louis : You fiend.

Louis : You haven't the vaguest conception under God what you ask.

Louis : You knew Lestat?

Louis : You lack the courage of your convictions sir, do it.

Louis : You see that old woman? That will never happen to you. You will never grow old, and you will never die.

Louis : You've condemned me to Hell.

Madeleine : Drink.

Madeleine : En contraire Monsieur, I have.

Whore : It's a coffin...

[bites Louis]

[slashes Lestat's face, and it heals immediately]

[to Malloy]

Renfield: I am not insane. I am a sane man fighting for his soul.

Van Helsing: We have all become God's madmen, all of us.

Van Helsing: She lives beyond the grace of God. She is "vampyr", "nosferatu". These creatures do not die like the bee after a first sting, but instead grow strong once infected by another nosferatu. My friends we fight not one beast but legions living age after age after age, feeding off of the blood of the living.

Dracula: The blood is life... and it shall be mine.

Dracula: I am the monster the breathing men want to kill. I am Dracula.

Dracula: The luckiest man in the world is he who finds true love.

Dracula: I never drink... wine.

Dracula: [to Jonathan Harker] They say you are a man of good... taste.

Dracula: [about the wolves that are howling] Listen to them: the children of the night. What sweet music they make.

Lord Arthur Holmwood: Last week he wanted to marry her. Now he wants to have her committed.

Dracula: I have crossed oceans of time to find you.

Van Helsing: Jack. Come here. I know how deeply you loved her. That is why you must trust me and believe...

Doctor Jack Seward: Believe? How can I believe?

Van Helsing: I want you to bring me before nightfall a set of postmortem knives.

Doctor Jack Seward: An autopsy? On Lucy?

Van Helsing: No, no. Not exactly. I just want to cut off her head and take out her heart.

Van Helsing: Mr. Morris, your bullets will not harm him. He must be beheaded. I suggest that you use your big Bowie knife.

Quincey P. Morris: Well, I wasn't plan on getting that close, Doc.

Dracula: Absinthe is the aphrodisiac of the self. The green fairy who lives in the absinthe wants your soul. But you are safe with me.

Mina: I want to be what you are. See what you see - love what you love.

Dracula: Mina, to walk with me you must die to your breathing life and be reborn to mine.

Mina: You are my love... and my life... always...

Dracula: Then... I give you life eternal. Everlasting love. The power of the storm. And the beasts of the earth. Walk with me... to be my loving wife... forever.

Dracula: I condemn you to living death. To eternal hunger for living blood.

Jonathan Harker: The Count, the way he looked at Mina's picture fills me with dread. As if I have a part to play in a story that is not known to me.

[to Mina about the wolf]

Dracula: He likes you .

Dracula: I... love you too much to condemn you.

Lucy Westenra: Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you.

Dracula: I shall rise from my own death, to avenge hers with all the powers of darkness.

Dracula: What devil or witch was ever so great as the killer whose blood flows in these veins?

Dracula: I am the last of my kind.

Professor Abraham Van Helsing: We are dealing with forces beyond all human experience, and enormous power. So guard her well. Otherwise, your precious Lucy will become a bitch of the Devil! A whore of darkness!

Mina Harker: How did Lucy die? Was she in great pain?

Mina Harker: Take me away from all of this death!

[Dracula has been slashed in the throat by Jonathan and impaled by Quincey]

[to Jonathan]

Mina: When my time comes, will you do the same to me?

[pause]

Mina: Will you?

Jonathan Harker: No.

Dracula: I, who served the Cross. I, who commanded nations, hundreds of years before you were born.

Dracula: I was betrayed. Look at what your God has done to me!

Lord Arthur Holmwood: Forgive me, Sir. My life is hers - I would give my last drop of blood to save her.