{"id":51524,"date":"2018-03-08T17:58:58","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T22:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=51524"},"modified":"2018-03-08T17:58:58","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T22:58:58","slug":"editorial-is-opera-a-misogynistic-art-form-or-a-chance-at-redemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2018\/03\/08\/editorial-is-opera-a-misogynistic-art-form-or-a-chance-at-redemption\/","title":{"rendered":"EDITORIAL | Is Opera A Misogynistic Art Form, Or A Chance At Redemption?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nora
Nora Sourouzian as Carmen and Gerard Michael D\u2019Emilio as Morales in the Minnesota Opera production of \u201cCarmen.\u201d (Photo: Michel Daniel)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I<\/span>n the advent of International Women\u2019s Day March 8, Decca Classics launched a playlist called \u201cWomen in Classical.\u201d Unlike what you might expect, the playlist is not composed of songs written by women, but women performing famous classical pieces created by men.<\/p>\n

When listening to the playlist, I couldn\u2019t help but contemplate the 21st-century debate about misogyny in classical music. In opera, for example, we see misogyny in both the institution and the art. The virtually non-existent female presence in positions of musical authority can be seen blatantly in the saturation of male composers and conductors in the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s 2018\u201319 season. Of course, one might think this is simply a symptom of the few female composers in the operatic canon. However, there are many operas written by women over the past a hundred years that simply haven\u2019t found their way into the spotlight. Although Op\u00e9ra de Montr\u00e9al\u2019s current season of only five operas boasts Ana Sokolovic\u2019s Svadba<\/em>, it is rare that one finds an opera composed by a woman produced at a major opera company in North America, including our very own Canadian Opera Company (COC).<\/p>\n

When it comes to the art, I do not think the debate is as black and white. Although one cannot deny that the majority of operas\u2019 narratives devour and obliterate women, the music\u2019s performance returns some of the agency denied to these women. Perhaps, through the performance of this music, we might exonerate the arias included on the \u201cWomen in Classical\u201d playlist.<\/p>\n

Disturbing Depictions of Women<\/h3>\n

It is undeniable that almost all opera plots are degrading to women. Since the most often performed operas today were composed in the 19th<\/span> and early 20th-centuries, it is hardly surprising that this is the case. During this time women\u2019s place was in the home. In the 20th-century, when women began to explore new roles previously held by men, they were seen as a threat to society\u2019s well being. Operas composed at this time, like any art form, are symptomatic of that period\u2019s values.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, one does not need to look very hard to find examples. Like every opera company around the world, the COC\u2019s season always includes women that die, are mutilated, or maybe even worse, denied happiness. Recently, we saw Gilda dominated by two men in the COC\u2019s production of Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s Rigoletto <\/em><\/a>(1851). Not only is Gilda confined from the world by her father, but she later kills herself in the place of a \u201clover\u201d who views her as nothing more than another sexual conquest. In past seasons, we saw Salome in Richard Strauss\u2019 opera of the same name (1905) literally crushed under the shields of the King\u2019s warriors to extinguish her unbridled feminine sexuality. In Gaetano Donizetti\u2019s Lucia di Lammermoor <\/em>(1835), the title character collapses into madness and dies after being forced into an arranged marriage by her brother and chaplain. In Richard Wagner\u2019s G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung <\/em>(1876), after destroying the corrupt world order, Br\u00fcnnhilde throws herself \u2013\u2013 and her horse, to add insult to injury \u2013\u2013 onto her unfaithful husband\u2019s funeral pyre. The most famous and widely digested example of female violence is Bizet\u2019s Carmen<\/em> (1875). Here, the title character is a sexually liberated and \u201cdangerous\u201d woman who is symbolically stabbed to death by her lover for choosing to leave him. The imagery is hardly subtle; in the final scene, Carmen is compared to an enraged bull, and as the matador tames a bull, she is stabbed by her lover, Don Jos\u00e9. The message here is that women must love only those they are told to love, and those who transgress are extinguished as a result of their sexual appetites.<\/p>\n

However, there are examples where the women in opera live. The COC will open their 2018\u201319 season with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky\u2019s most famous opera, Eugene Onegin <\/em>(1879). This opera is a condensed version of Alexander Pushkin\u2019s classic novel that tells the story of Tatyana, a young girl who learns of romantic love from the fantasies told in gothic novels. Unlike in these books where the women are saved by the dark and mysterious men they fall in love with, Tatyana is scorned by Onegin for her overzealous proclamation of love. After Tatyana is married, Onegin belatedly discovers his passion for her and declares his love for her, but it is too late. Despite returning his love, Tatyana chooses her duty as a wife. Although she does not die, she suffers an emotional death trapped in the societal expectations of wedlock.<\/p>\n

Having said all this, you might be thinking, \u201cwhy then do we still perform these operas, are we simply as misogynistic as we were two hundred years ago?\u201d Although I think women\u2019s rights is an ongoing struggle, I do believe we have come a long way from the contexts in which these operas were written. As to why these operas are still performed, it is often argued that the timelessness of the music redeems these antiquated plot lines. However, this argument is also problematic.<\/p>\n

Meaningless Music or Another Form of Oppression?<\/h3>\n

Most opera devotees are drawn to the genre because of its seductive music, rather than the verbal text, which most people couldn\u2019t understand without live translation. But while audiences might describe the music as \u201ctranscendental,\u201d scholars such as Catherine Cl\u00e9ment and Susan McClary explain that most spectators lack the tools to decode the imagery it contains. The question then, is whether the music reiterates the misogynistic messages in the text.<\/p>\n

In her 1991 revolutionary book on feminist musicology Feminine Endings<\/em>, McClary argued that the text and<\/em> music in Carmen <\/em>depict the obliteration of this provocative female. In Carmen\u2019s first aria, better known as the habanera or \u201cL\u2019amour est un oiseau rebelle,\u201d she describes the untameable nature of love. Here, her famously chromatic vocal line sung to the word \u201cL\u2019amour\u201d predicates and makes us desire her eventual destruction which aligns with the music\u2019s resolution:<\/p>\n