It’s Never the Bass: Opera’s True Transgressors Sing Soprano

In performance, female protagonists are frequently positioned as the true transgressors on the stage. When female characters assert their strength, they regularly experience a punishment or series of punishments, which often involves the loss of their children if they are mothers, and/or reform. These trajectories remain remarkably consistent from the Ancient Greek amphitheatre to the modern Hollywood screen. One of the genres within which this is particularly evident is opera, which confirms and solidifies these limitations. Reform and/or punishment are apparent in both the libretto and the music whether the performance is dramatic opera, opera buffa or opera burlesque. On the surface, the monsters of opera are murderous villains such as Tosca’s Scarpia; however, a closer reading reveals the soprano-voiced diva is habitually positioned as monstrous since her role gives rise to gendered border transgressions, thereby destabilizing social order. Her death is often demanded in order to restore that order. At present, although the opera genre as a whole does, the opera canon does not include any works by women. This paper suggests that re-examining the canon for more nuanced interpretations of the messages, along with including female composers, is necessary for opera to stay a living art and not simply a reflection of the past.