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MUSICAL PERFORMANCES OF GENDER, Chopin was also described with this "…
MUSICAL PERFORMANCES OF GENDER
SEX AND GENDER AS A VERTICAL SPECTRUM
Hadlock, "Opera and Gender Studies"
Hadlock discusses Catherine Clément's
Opera, or, The Undoing of Women.
Clément posits heroines as scapegoats for societal guilt. In this view, women are punished for non-normative behavior, and the production serves to distract audience from the sexist messaging.
Verdi's
La Traviata
(1853)
Violetta is a courtesan (essentially a prostitute for the elite) who enters a relationship with a nobleman named Alfredo.
Alfredo's father breaks them up due to Violetta's lower status
Once their relationship is saved, Violetta dies of tuberculosis. In the context of Clément, we can read her death as punishment for her sex work.
Thomas Laqueur argues that sex and gender were imagined as a vertical continuum in the early modern period. In this model, adult masculinity is at the top, and adult femininity is at the bottom. “The fascinating danger was that subjects might not maintain their proper places: ambitious, passionate women might surpass the normal limits of ‘femininity,’ while undisciplined men might slide back down into the ‘effeminate’ realm of feeling of self-indulgence” (265)
Both men and women face consequences for deviating from the norm
Monteverdi's
Orfeo
(1605)
In this opera seria, Orfeo tries to sing his lover, Euridice, out of the underworld.
For the majority of the opera, Orfeo has control over his speech. Thus, his music follows convention
After Orfeo fails to save Euridice, he sings a lament. Laments were culturally associated with women due to their uncontrolled emotionality.
Thus, we can read Orfeo's failure as punishment for entering a feminine realm (the underworld)
The underworld functions similarly to the garden, serving as a feminine realm that is dangerous, natural, and irrational.
Mozart's
Die Zauberflöte
(1791)
In this opera, Pamina and Tamino are initiated into the brotherhood through a series of trials
Pamina is forced to sever ties with her mother in order to be initiated
Her mother, the Queen of the Night, regularly exhibits features of the sublime, which Burke and Kant considered to be masculine. Her expressions of grandeur and her commanding presence upset the dichotomy of beauty as feminine and sublime as masculine, and she is cast out as a result
Pamina remains artifice and lovable, and she is rewarded for maintaining her proper place
Mozart's
Cosí fan tutte
(1790)
In this opera buffa, a philosopher (Alfonso) makes a bet with two lovers that their wives will cheat on them.
The men get wrapped up in emotional excess
Only the men sing in minor, which was thought by Rousseau to be unstable in feminine
The men are punished by losing the bet with Alfonso
CROSS-DRESSING ON STAGE
Castrati
According to Jarman, Come the late 17th-century, falsettists were replaced with castrati. Their voices were seen as more authentic. Through the 18th-century, castrati played male heroes in opera seria ("Pitch Fever").
Beginning around 1750, penetrative sex and marriage were seen as integral to the formation of masculinity. It is clear, then, that an uncastrated body (one that is capable of reproduction) would be a more fitting symbol of masculine heroism ("Pitch Fever").
There are also cases where castrati played women. Their ambiguous bodies made their sexual identity confusing, yet eroticized.
Honoré de Balzac’s
Sarrasine
(1830). In this book, Sarrasine becomes infatuated with "La Zambinella," a famous opera singer. Sarrasine is horrified to discover that La Zambinella is a castrato, and plots to kidnap him to discover the truth ("Haunting Legacies").
Why are castrati so fascinating?
They had immense influence on vocal tehcnique
The most influential singing treatises were written by castrati
These writings seldom mentioned women's choices or uncastrated male voices
The primary focus of bel canto technique is to blend registers seamlessly so as to not break the illusion
According to André, Castrati were said to be able to study and recreate the female sex. This is similar to the way men can wield femininity in the later two-sex model.
Travesti
According to André, in 1830, Rossini was at the center of opera. Even as castration fell out of fashion, he continued to write roles their vocal style for women. These women stepped into heroic roles. ("Haunting Legacies") Roles written for women to play men are called "travesti."
Massenet's
Cendrillon
(1899)
In this telling of the Cinderella story, Prince Charming is written for and played by a soprano. This is an example of a trouser role being intended for women, rather than being a role originally written for a castrato.
How is Prince Charming's body dealt with on stage?
Sight and sound are carefully separated
Prince Charming only sings when he's alone with Cinderella
He remains silent when he is surrounded by male characters in his chambers
Later in the opera, the Fairy Godmother allows Prince Charming to hear, but not see each other
The idea of separating sight and sound is central to why Sarrasine is so disturbed when he finds out the truth about La Zambinella. The illusion of the castrato being a woman was so strong that Sarrasine ignored visual signals.
In Massenet's
Cherubín
, sight and sound are separated when his romances reach their height. It is possible that this cleaving of his body from his voice are intentionally avoiding the taboo of lesbianism on stage.
This separation of sight and sound is perhaps more necessary for travesti. Due to their abnormal hormonal development, castrati often developed extra fatty tissue around their breast and hips, causing them to have more androgynous figures. Travesti have unmodified assigned-female-at-birth bodies, and thus require a greater suspension of disbelief to view as male.
Hadlock discusses Cherubino in his many iterations, who is perhaps the most popular trouser role (originally from
Le Nozze di Figaro
). In
Le Nozze di Figaro
, Cherubino's appeal to the women is his similarity to them. He is immature, comedic, and his attraction is met with laughter. In Massenet's
Cherubín
, he is a successful lover. His love is no longer intrinsically comedic. ("The Career of Cherubino")
AGENCY ON STAGE
Deception
According to Higgins, in opera buffa, there is more room for female agency amidst the comedy and chaos.
Mozart's
Le Nozze di Figaro
(1786)
Women are posited as irrational, yet they are largely in control. For example, Susanna and the Countess switch outfits to expose the Count's infidelity.
Mozart's
Cosí fan tutte
(1790)
The garden, a place heavily associated with femininity and irrationality, is the site where the sisters are seduced and deceived
Fate
Often, female characters are left helpless to change their fate.
Verdi's
La Traviata
(1853)
Violetta's death is foreshadowed from the very beginning by the gloomy overture.
Mozart's
Cosí fan tutte
(1790)
The sisters at times adopt an opera seria style. In one scene, Fiordiligi promises to keep her vows. The overly dramatic style mocks her eventual acquiescence and hints to her insincerity
Musical Style
Mozart's
Cosí fan tutte
(1790)
The men lose control over their musical speech due to their intense emotionality
Pastoral Style
The pastoral musical style is in 6/8, in a major key, is wind-heavy, and invokes natural imagery
Typically used to represent femininity
In
Le Nozze Di Figaro
, Susanna and the Countess' duet is in the pastoral style. Here, they use it to their advantage.
In
Die Zauberflöte
, Pamina and Papageno sing a pastoral duet. Here, Pamina is simply a conduit for the dissemination of societal values about a woman's duty to marry.
The Autonomy of Performance
Higgins implies that there is some autonomy in performance. “Its dying, fading, lost, flailing females are performed by magnificent artists, stars of the show, in control of strong and sexy instruments - their voices” (7).
"[Hadlock's] purpose is to reorient our gaze away from Clément's master narrative of women's undoing and onto the cross-dressed soprano, who, while she rarely occupies center stage for long, does tend to survive the prescribed fate of heroines” (69)."
In the transitory period from castrati to tenors as heroes, many women took center stage as the hero.
Women's throats were seen as sex organs in Monteverdi's time. The close control of women's rhetoric persisted in the following centuries.
Patriarchal Control
Les Contes d'Hoffmann (1881)
Hoffmann's second love sings herself to death after a Dr. Miracle conjures the image of her dead mother. Why does Dr. Miracle have the power to do this? In each act of this opera, there is a masculine antagonist who controls women in some way and sabotages Hoffmann's love.
Hoffmann falls in love with a mechanical doll who he believes to be her creator's daughter. The doll sings to Hoffmann, but she needs to be wound up to continue singing. Thus, her agency is (quite literally) dependent on a patriarchal creator.
“In summary, we could say about the soprano that she is a figure of excess, contained by masculine rationality and often subject to narrative death as well as musical containment” (Jarman, "The Castrato, The Tenor").
In
Die Zauberflöte
, Pamina plays a small role in her initiation. According to Brown-Montesano, if not for her pledging loyalty to Sarastro and Tamino and casting out her mother, she would not have been able to ascend. ("Good Daughter, Good Wife")
In
Cosí fan tutte
, Alfonso is in control of the men and the women. Although the men get wrapped up in emotional excess as well, Alfonso and Despina create unfair scenarios to appeal specifically to the sisters. In one scene, the men pretend to poison themselves to earn the sisters' pity. The social experiment, although technically "successful" in Alfonso's eyes, is completely void of context and fairness.
Alfonso wields femininity as a manipulative tool. In Act I he sings a trio with the sisters that invokes natural imagery as they wish the men a safe journey "at war." Why does Don Alfonso sing with them? We can read his participation as a demonstration of his ability to understand femininity and wield it to his benefit.
Kallberg expresses the importance of analyzing gendered meanings of music using ideas that were important to society at the time. ("Gender and Music")
PERFORMING CULTURAL VALUES
The "one-sex" model
Kallberg introduces the idea of "one-sex" and "third-sex" models. In the "one-sex" model, female bodies are imperfect versions of male bodies. The idea of a "third-sex" was used to describe people with an otherworldly quality. Castrati fall into this category. ("Sex, Sexuality")
Women under the "one-sex" model
By the 1830s, castration was less common, and women began to sing heroic roles. At this time, the one-sex model was most prominent, under which women could imitate castrati and represent masculinity on stage. As society shifted toward the two-sex model, women began to be seen as fundamentally different. ("Pitch Fever...")
The "two-sex" model
According to Hadlock, as the two-sex system developed, women as heroes were seen as "unmanly" and unrealistic. The new operatic canon of the tenor/soprano relationship developed out of these cultural shifts ("Opera and Gender Studies")
Examples of the tenor/soprano dynamic:
Susanna and Figaro
Pamina and Tamino
Papageno and Papagena
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Although it predates the "two-sex" model, the role of Orfeo was played by a tenor. Thus,
Orfeo
is an example of heroism represented by male bodies prior to the popularity of castrati as male heroes.
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Under the "one-sex" model, women took center stage as imitations of castrati, making them the standard for vocal technique and color.
Rousseau
According to Brown-Montesano,
Cosí fan tutte
is riddled with Rousseau's philosophies ("Sisterhood and Seduction")
Sexual intercourse was unimportant
Marital fidelity must be kept for public appearance, but concealed infidelity is okay
Sex cannot truly be denied if the woman feels anything at all for the man
In
Le Nozze di Figaro
, the Count publically renounces his
droit du seigneur
, and he is met with great praise by his peasants. He still intends to sleep with Susanna outside of the public's eye, and he does not consider Susanna's feelings.
In
Cosí fan tutte
, Despina sings an aria about how women deserve to fulfill their needs and instructs the sisters how to secretly cheat on their husands.
Alfonso's point in
Cosí fan tutte
is that the nature of women (which is engaging in infidelity, apparently) cannot be denied
Michel Foucault described the emergence of the "Classical" episteme, which was concerned with classification and taxonomy. Botany became very popular as a result of this concern for describing the natural world.
Botany
According to DeNora, Vienna became a center for botany in the late 18th-century. Plants' sexual organs were described as "husband" and "wife," with the female sex organs being seen as subordinate. ("Biology Lessons...")
An example of gender being a relational phenomenon as described by Kallberg ("Gender and Music").
Women were historically associated with what is natural, irrational, and undisciplined. These classifications strengthened these associations. Mozart himself was very interested in botany, and the garden became a common setting in opera buffa.
In
Le Nozze di Figaro
, Figaro compares women to "thorned roses."
Nationalism
According to Wilson, in the 20th century, opera's relevance began to dwindle. The Covent Garden remained an active institution, but its elite audience was perceived as feminine. Beecham wanted to appeal to upper middle-class men to revitalize the art form. The acronym MILO itself references an Olympic victor and military figure from the ancient world, which calls to mind imperialism and idealized masculinity. ("Gender Studies in Opera")
Since the elite audience was perceived by the public as effeminate, it makes sense that the opera buffa style, which was meant to please middle-class audience, made fun of elitism and overconfident rulers.
The Count is repeatedly tricked and embarrassed in
Le Nozze di Figaro
Chopin was also described with this "otherworldly" quality