Misogyny in Opera

[BuffysBigSister]

I've been doing a class at a local uni on opera - history, looking at individual operas. It's been great fun, I feel I have learned a lot but watching a different opera every week I have really become aware of the lack of a female voice in opera. For our last class we are watching Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The teacher has already given a trigger warning. I have started watching a performance and it has made me so angry. The rape scene was quite graphic which I suppose I wasn't expecting. I also listened to a podcast on misogyny in opera which said many young female singers leave opera because of how they are treated, especially in scenes like this.
I suppose I just wanted to vent a bit here so I don't go to my class raging! Can anyone recommend any operas by women or from a more female slant to give me some balance?

I think you’re confusing a number of different things here. Lady Macbeth of Mitensk (and the source story) involves a rape, just as it involves scenes of wrestling and a whipping. Some productions present this graphically, others not. Of the ones that do, I imagine some are doing it to critique the patriarchal society in which the opera is set, while others appear to think (like much of tv and film) that rape is ‘entertainment’, something also find deeply disturbing. Your teacher was right to warn you, obviously. The ROH had a production of Rigoletto that involved a rape (not in the opera) to illustrate the cruelty and misogyny of the Duke’s court, which I found disturbing, but not inappropriate in this opera — I sat in on rehearsals, and was satisfied the actress in question (it wasn’t a singing role) was properly treated by the director and crew.

It’s a fact that opera now requires different things of its singer — they’re now required to act well as well as to sing well, and to dance, and often to sing (over a full orchestra and ( in difficult situations — eg upside down, lying down, running through the stalls, on a trapeze et.

I don’t know the podcast (could you say what it was?), but it can be a brutal world to start off in as a young singer, regardless of sex. I know countless singers who’ve dropped out because the casual gigs, insecurity and continual travels are wearying. Some bastions of the classical music world, like the Vienna Phil, were massively patriarchal , all-male institutions until v recently. Marin Alsop is very interesting on being a female conductor. And traditional opera centres on female vocal beauty, but very often ends with the death of the soprano! It’s a weirdly lopsided world in which female roles are key, female stars very powerful, but their characters are rarely alive by the time the curtain falls.

There are loads of operas by women, but part of the problem is a repertoire calcified around a few male-authored classics, so even when they’re performed, it’s seldom. Look up Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, or anything by the 19thc singer Pauline Viardot, who also composed, or Judith Weir, or Kaaija Saariaho.

If you like opera, you have to come to terms with the plots. I would hope your course has covered 'why do women die in opera'.

I'm surprised it's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk that has upset you and honestly not all the others! Lady Macbeth is shocking but also very sympathetic to it's main character and the way she tries and fails to break out of her life of misery. It's one of my favorites.

Compared to the absolute atrocity that is Werther for example (which honestly I don't think should be performed anymore). Even some of the popular operas are basically she died because she liked shiny things. DH and I struggled to find a date appropriate opera, I think the best we could come up with is Hansel and Gretel. Or The Cunning Little Vixen - which is lovely although the title makes it sound like it's about a manipulative bitch.

Have you seen anything by Richard Strauss or Janacek? They are both obsessed with the female voice so have amazing female focussed (in a good way) operas. Although there's Elektra and Salome... OK I like those too, the characters are just so strong.

If you want to see something by a woman have you seen Kaija Saariho? I saw her work Innocence at ROH and it's amazing but on the other hand, it's about a school shooting.

I think young opera singers dropping out is a separate issue. It's super competitive, the acting level expected is now high - not like the Joan Sutherland years. And directors' tedious obsession with BDSM seems to have been going on decades. It may be cool if you are new to opera and thought it was staid and uptight, but when you have been going for 20 years you start rolling your eyes when there is yet another bondage production. Germany and Eastern Europe are especially bad for this. My friend hasn't got over seeing a production of Ariadne auf Naxos inspired by octopus porn

@FishStreet I have read the original novella by Leskov and I don't think there is a rape scene - or if there is its so "subtle" I missed it. The podcast is . Hopefully that link works.

@AnnaMagnani I noticed that Innocence is being performed in Dresden next year so may try to see that.

For the record, Werther is hands down my least favourite opera we have covered. I am relatively new to opera and I think when you have to sit and watch one opera after another it maybe hits you in the face rather more than if you were attending one or two performances a year iyswim. Anyway, really interesting to hear other people's views, thanks for sharing

Even some of the popular operas are basically she died because she liked shiny things.

That made me laugh, but it's true! See also 'Because she was a fun-lovin' courtesan', 'Because she killed herself for love', 'Because she is stabbed for being a Manipulative Seductress' 'Because she decides to sacrifice herself to an assassin for her faithless lover' etc etc

OP, do you know Cathérine Clément's work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera,_or_the_Undoing_of_Women

Good on reading opera as a spectacular staging of female death/madness/ submission, though also worth reading responses critiquing her conclusions and pointing out that the female voice is pre-eminently powerful in these operas, and complicates this narrative that opera overwhelmingly involves women, especially powerful or unconventional ones, having to be written out in order to achieve narrative closure.

I've started listening to the podcast, but opera to me isn't much different from the world of the theatre -- despite attempts to rectify this, absolutely still dominated by middle-class white guys in positions of power, and an overwhelmingly dead white male repertoire, possibly with even less amenability to diversifying this, because opera is so expensive to stage that new or riskier ventures are potentially crippling.

I also know people in the classical music/opera world, and they drop out in roughly equal numbers in my experience (I know an excellent 30something tenor who keeps the wolf from the door by singing for weddings), or choose chorus roles because they don't want to travel all the time, and prefer a regular job.

Even the ROH does have this programme, and stages more work by women in the small Linbury space:

https://www.roh.org.uk/about/the-royal-opera/engender

@BuffysBigSister pretty much all my dates with DH were opera. So if you are going every 2-3 weeks, yes the misogyny does hit you.

Werther is just awful, and not even Rolando Villazon could save it for me. The fact the book was an international best seller was even worse.

I loved the production of Lady Macbeth I saw but as @FishStreet says, the production very much centred on her living in a highly oppressive society and TBH the rape wasn't even the worst thing that happened to her.

The production had the whole set covered in mud apart from her pristine white room where she was living trapped as a trophy wife. During the course of the production the mud got walked everywhere which was a very visual representation of the plot and her increasing misery.

I have a much bigger objection to directors shoehorning sex or rape scenes in, or the 'issue of the day' when it isn't there in the opera, just because they think it is entertaining. Worst example of this was Katie Mitchell's Theodora, which supposedly was 'feminist' but just revealed she hadn't the first clue about what actually made Theodora powerful. In the plot, Theodora is a single minded woman who chooses to become a Christian martyr, thus achieving lasting power and meaning. Katie Mitchell made her a terrorist mass killer because she wanted her to have agency. I was so angry, I'm still angry now thinking of it.

@Amendment thanks for the book suggestion - I have ordered from the local library and look forward to reading it.
@AnnaMagnani I've been watching interviews about that production of Theodora. I haven't found a full performance from ROH but will try another production.

I decided to take the class because I wanted to broaden my knowledge of opera and be introduced to operas I didn't know. It has been really enjoyable - the two teachers are very enthusiastic. It wasn't my intention to turn it into anything feminist but it seems to be screaming out for a few comments and this thread has given me some more stuff to think about

@BuffysBigSister the production is 95% amazing. Cast and singing are superb.
Production felt great, Katie got a bit too excited about a man dressing as a woman and thinking this was 'gender fluidity' and not a standard way of creating a disguise to escape. But I ignored that, even the pole dancing felt relevant to the plot.

And then she demonstrated she hadn't understood the first thing about the character of Theodora by making the Christians terrorists at the last minute. Which was meant to be empowering.

I think the most infuriating thing was up until the last 5 minutes I'd been having a transcedent spiritual experience and then it was quite literally shot to pieces.

I loved Theodora - including the rather surprising ending! I was new to it however, so might have felt differently if it was an old fave. It is enraging that the women always have to die, so I quite enjoyed the unexpected shoot out at the end, instead of accepting her fate like a good girl.

Just to add another perspective. I took my 23 year old daughter to see Cosi Fan Tutte. She loved it but was raging about the gaslighting of the girls. So it’s not just rape and murder. It’s made me re look at a lot of opera differently.

Interesting discussion and resonates.

I feel similarly about folk songs! Just dreadful misogny.

Haha yep, My OH took me to Rome and we went to see Handel's Alcina (huge brownie points for his self-sacrifice as he's not an opera lover at all and it was 4 hours long😄), OMG though, the plot!! I actually asked him about 15 minutes in if he had known it was an incel opera. The poor thing looked quite panicked until I reassured him that it was completely standard for any woman to either be an evil seductress witch, a faithless hussy or a stupid innocent in opera. You just have to laugh, tell yourself times have changed and enjoy the beautiful music.

I entirely agree @Raquelos these operas were mostly written ages ago, the music is still wonderful.

Sounds like a good class @BuffysBigSisteris it available online too?

@BartokRules its an in-person class at the university only I'm afraid. So glad this thread came back to life as I am going back for more opera - they are running a second course, same format but a different set of operas starting next week. Each week we'll discuss a different opera, starting with Alcina @Raquelos .

I can't add any recommendations but I have used this when rap has been criticised for misogyny and racism.

Can you separate the music / art from the story being told?

Carman gives you a double dose of misogyny combined with racism.

I’ve just seen Carmen (flighty, but strong and not to be messed with) and she and Micaela (loyal, persistent, nerdy!) were the stars of the show, the men were the also rans. There was no sense Carmen deserved to be killed, it was a “jealous bloke kills woman so no one else can have her” situation, such as you read about in the papers all the time, unfortunately.

Oooh, do let us know what you think, and try and remember that the music is why you like opera, not the terrible (mostly misogynistic) plots 😉