A Variety of Scholarly and Community Activities in Los
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9 ONE, INC. a variety of scholarly and community unaware until the last act of her beloved's activities in Los Angeles. actual sex. Ward Houser In 1974, Dominique Fernandez wrote a novel entitled Porporino, ou les rnystkres de Naples, about Italian castrati, OPERA many neutered as boys in order to preserve A composite art fusing wordst the treble timbres of their singing voices, music, and stagecraft, opera has flourkhed and drawing on historical fact, depicting for five centuries. Although the lavish them as having hetero- and homosexual support the medium requires has, until relationships. In 1979, the French Aix recently, placed limits on overt represen- Festival presented a staged Porporino us- tation of variant se~uality,careful SCru- ing dialogue from the novel and a tiny reveals significant homoerotic aspects. of arias by Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Origins. Opera began in late Ren- Battista Pcrgolesi, and other eighteenth- aissance Italy with Jacopo Perils Dafne century composers, assembled by musi- ( 1597) and Euridice (160011and ho~~osex- cologis t Roger Blanchard. Countertenor ual themes and characters initially aP- James Bowman and high coloratura tenor peared during the form's first half-centuV Bruce Brewer portrayed castrati Porporino or so of existence. In director Gerald and Feliciano. Freedman's 1973 New York City Opera Two of Wolfgang Amadeus production of Claudio Monteverdi's ~~~~rtf~major operas concern homosex- L'lncoronaZione di Poppea (164211 con- ual monarchs from antiquity. Alexander cerning the marriage of the bisexual first- the Great, the fourth-century B.c.con- century Roman emPerorNer0 to his mis- queror of the Persian Empire (whose orien- tress, Poppaea Sabin%the erotic nature of tation is discussed in a biography by Roger Nero's relationship with the poet Marcus Peyrefitte and in novels by Mary Renault), Annaeus Lucanus--called Lucano in the is a central figure in I1 Re Pastore ( 1775). In libretto-was made explicit. In Pier Fran- ~h,~~~l~~ coesars, the R~~~~ historian cesco Cavalli's La Cafisto ( 165 11, Jove, the Suetoniuswrotethat first-century emperor supreme ~~n~andeity) must disguise Titus, the protagonist of La Clemenza di himself asDiana, goddess of the moon and ~i~~(1791 1, uowned troops of inverts and the hunt, in order to seduce the nymph eunuchs~~and had urelations with . Calisto. Among the musicians of the sev- favorite boys [who] danced . on the enteenth century, Jean-Baptiste Lully stage." The finales of both operas find the (1632-168711 court music master to King heterosexual lovers paired up while the Louis of France and composer of 20 rulers remain alone: eighteenth-century operas, was homosexual- The Poet Pietro sensibilities would never have tolerated Metastasio ( 1698-1782Ir the greatest li- on-stage male mates for Alessandro and brettist of the Baroque period, was erotic- q-ito. hi^ situation ~~ll~~~~d~~ ally linked to several men of his day. development of the "harmless sissy" image In her study Sex Variant for films of the 1930s and 1940s, rendering in fiteramre (195611Jeannette Foster char- gay male characters asexual to avoid pro- acterized the heroicBradamante in Ludo- volting public outrage. a salzburg vico Ariosto's epic Orlando Furioso ( 1531) intermezzo ~~~ll~et ~~~~j~~h~~, as a "young Amazon in full armor" who posed when he was eleven, Mozart had finds, between martial exploits, that she approached the forbidden theme more attracts female admirers. In George Frid- directly, though in the ~~~i~libretto the ericHandel's Alcina (1735))Bradamante's love of the god for the boy is in part ob- loving champion is the eponymous en- scured by a female interest. chantress' sister Morgana, who remains OPERA f Nineteenth Century. Passionate production of Georges Bizet's Carmen letters Ludwigvan Beethoven (1770-1 827) (1875)) realized posthumously by Bodo wrote to his nephew, Carl Obermayer, Igesz, Gentele had the smuggler Remen- have led to speculation that the German dado played as gay on the basis of his composer may have been homosexual. In rhapsodizing over the "distinguished" his only opera, Fidelio (1805), the fearless Englishmen he has seen in Gibraltar, and Leonore, who dons male clothing to pene- other passages of dialogue. trate prison walls in order to rescue her While Eugene Onegin (1879)and husband, Florestan, a political prisoner, The Queen of Spades (1890) by attracts a female admirer, Marzelline, jailer Tchaikovsky show heterosexual love frus- Rocco's daughter. When Leonore reveals traed or in a cynical light, they offer no gay her true identity to all in the finale, alternative. In an Opera News article Marzelline bewails her choice of love ob- (19861, American gay composer and diarist ject. In Otto Schenk's 1970 Metropolitan Ned Rorem contrasted Tchaikovsky, Opera production, choristers made much whose "homosexuality . was 'realized' homophobic merriment over Marzelline's though tragic," with his compatriot Mod- discomfort. est Mussorgsky (1839-1881) who, Rorem The fifteenth-century transvestite opined, "was homosexual. [but]proba- and French patron saint, Joan of Arc, was bly unfilfilled." Mussorgsky set his given male lovers in Giuseppe Verdi's masterwork Boris Godunov (completed Giovanna d'Arco (1845) and in Russian 1870, revised 1871-72) in the homosocial homosexual Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's halls of government and the exclusively The Maid of Orldans (188 1j, just as the male environment of the monastery. The Lesbian poet was in Charles Gounod's sole heterosexual liaison, between Marina Sapho (1851).St. Joan's lifewas laterdrama- and Dimitri, spurred by power, not love, tized in Joan (1971) by openly gay, New was only added later to fulfill the Imperial York-based composer and minister A1 Theatre's directors' demand that the opera Carmines (born 1936), whose eclectic have a prima donna. In Khovanshchina, works, drawing on classical, popular, and on which Mussorgsky worked between liturgical music, are variously termed 1872 and 1880 but left unfinished, the operas, oratorios, and musicals. In Joan, composer included gay-baiting among the martyred heroine's story is updated to Prince Andrei Khovansky's other unsa- the present and relocated to New York's vory attributes. When his abandoned fi- East Village and Joan and the Virgin Mary ancCe Marfa prevents his pursuit of the are depicted as lovers. frightened Emma, Andrei snidely wonders Daniel Auber's Gustave 111 ou Le if Marfa is herself "inappropriately at- BalMasqud (1833) and Verdi's Un Balloin tracted" to Emma. Dignified Marfa calmly Maschera (1859) have as protagonist ignores his charge. homosexual Swedish King Gustavus 111 French composer Camille Saint- (1746-1792), whose reign began in 1771, Saens (1835-1921) is best known to opera- but stress his heterosexual amorous pur- philes as the composer of Samson et Dalila suits. Magnus Hirschfeld cited possible (1877). In a Gay Sunshine interview, liaisons between the king and Adolf Fre- Edouard Roditi recalled that Saint-Saens, drik Muell, Johann Aminoff, and Gustav "a notorious homosexual," was trailed by Mauritz Armfelt, men to whom he gave plainclothes police bodyguards protecting the title of Count. In a production of Ballo him from "scandal" and harassment as he at the Royal Opera in Stockholm (1959)) searched for sex partners. Though the director Goran Gentele suggested an erotic Biblical spectacle and lush orchestration tie between the king and the page Oscar, of Samson seem to hint at agay sensibility, who is played by a soprano. In his 1972 Met these also characterize works of the pre- 0:- OPERA sumably heterosexual Jules Massenet and Pelldas et Mdlisande (1902),should beseen likely merely show Saint-Saens to be typi- as gay and asked if the dying Marcellus, cal of creative artists of his time. who lures him from his ailingfather's side, A profound influence on late- is more than a friend. Romantic and later composers was the Wagner's heir as preeminent German Richard Wagner (1813-1883 1. His German composer of his day was Richard principal patronwas thehomosexualKing Strauss. The earliest Strauss opera in the Ludwig of Bavaria (1845-18861, who had regular repertory is Salome (1905), a set- the court opera in Munich give the pre- ting of the 1893 play by IrishIEnglish mieres of Tristan und Isolde (1865), Die homosexual writer Oscar Wilde Meistersanger von Nurnberg [1868),Das (1854-1900).LinesofHerodias'page, which Rheingold [1869),and Die Walkiire (18701, imply his intimacy with Narraboth, Syr- thoughit is questionablewhether thelzing's ian captain of the Tetrarch's guard-"He ardor was requited. was my brother and nearer to me than a Some directors of Das Rheingold brother," and so on-were omitted from have depicted as gay the gentle god Froh, librettist HedwigLachmannls adaptation, who pines for his sister Freia when the but Herod's observation that Narraboth giants abduct her and conjures up the rain- "was fair to look upon" remained. Other bow bridge leading to Valhalla. Father M. operas based on works of Wilde include Owen Lee, in Opera News (19871, and Alexander von Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg other writers have explored homoerotic and Eine Florentinische Tragodie, Mario themes in Parsifal(1882),concerning the Castelnuovo-Tedesco's 7%eImportanceof youth who joins the homosocial society of Being Ernest, William Orchard's The Pic- the Knights of the Grail. In his 1983 film, ture of Dorian Gray, Hans Schaeuble's director Hans Jiirgen Syberberg found in Dorian Gray, Renzo Bossits L'usignuolo e Parsifal an androgynous duality and split la rosa, and Jaroslav Kriclta's The Gentle- his scenes between an actor and an actress. man in White. Wilde and the aesthetic The Earlier Twentieth Century. movement were satirized in Sir William Wagner influenced the compositions of Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's operetta Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-19441, whose Patience (1881))but without mention of lesbianism is well attested.