Setting Operas in the Heart of Darkness

To avoid the unpleasant task of writing my book, I've decided to spend a few minutes ruminating on 19th century operas that deal with African settings and characters. Many years ago, I sent out a query to the American Musicological Society's listserve inquiring about operas that have black characters in them. Based on the answers I received, I compiled a list of operas to investigate at some point in my life. Little did I know at the time that some really great scholars were also working on interrogating blackness in opera, and they published a book later that year that's literally called Blackness in Opera:

Coolness, right? Anyway. What I want to focus on, however, are 19th century operas that specifically used an African setting or African character. Because they all share a trait that musicologists have kind of picked up on but I'm not sure anyone's discussed at length: although most of these operas claim to be set in "Africa" (as in "sub-Saharan Africa"), they're really not. 

I think the main example that people are aware of here is Giacomo Meyerbeer's popular 1865 opera, L'Africaine:

Supposedly a tale about Vasco de Gama's adventures around the world, a good chunk of it takes place on an African island where the "natives" practice a religion much more akin to Hinduism. The island also appears to be in the Indian Ocean, perhaps near Madagascar or someplace like that. Here's the wonderful opera singer Shirley Verrett singing part of it with Placido Domingo at the San Francisco Opera in 1988:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoTNo5Zz3RU
(for some reason, the blog won't let me upload the video directly onto the page today)

If you watch the clip, you'll see that Girlfriend is straight-up wearing an Indian sari in the opera. How "African" is Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, I (and numerous musicologists) have wondered?

But Meyerbeer's opera, L'Africaine, isn't the only one that side steps Africanism in its quest to be exotic. Countless scholars have debated how we're supposed to interpret Verdi's Aida:

The opera's set in ancient Egypt, and the main femme fatale/femme fragile is an Ethiopian princess. How "Ethiopian" the opera director chooses to make her has greatly fluctuated over time.

Here's Grace Bumbry as "Aida":

The fabulous diva, Leontyne Price, serving it as usual (girlfriend don't PLAY):

Violetta Urmana at the Met recently (in brownface. Yes, I said it):

And as much as audiences enjoyed the opera when it premiered, some felt uncomfortable with its black African qualities. Here's Hanslick complaining about the work in 1880:

“The politics and religion, the oddities of dress and civilization of the ancient Egyptians are altogether too strange for us [Viennese/Germans]. We do not feel at ease among a lot of brown and black painted men. It may be urged that this is merely external, yet, for all, the spectator's sympathies are chilled…Think of nothing but dark-colored singers on the stage! Then, besides, the ugly, vaulting negroes and the dancing women dressed and painted in the most repulsive manner! An opera should present something of the lovely and agreeable, and no ethnological exactness can compensate for a total lack of beauty."

 (Taken from Dwight's Journal of Music, December 18, 1880, p. 201)

 
Yikes. In Hanslick's review, it seems unimaginable or inconceivable that one could depict black characters in an aesthetically pleasing way.

David Brodbeck has done some really fascinating work looking at Viennese reception of Karl Goldmark's opera, Queen of Sheba (Königin von Saba). Reviews were laced with thinly-veiled (or oftentimes open and hostile) anti-Semitic remarks that claimed that the music and setting reminded the critics of a Jewish service at the synagogue (as if any of them had ever been. But whatever):

Lastly, I want to point out Franz von Suppe's operetta, Die Afrikareise, from 1885:

 Zoe has a fancy fellowship at Harvard this summer to do some digging around, and she's been flipping through the score and libretto for this operetta. So far, she's discovered that the work really isn't set in Africa at all, although they do mention the country Chad at one point. Rather, it seems to have a more traditional orientalist setting (in the Saidian sense of the word).

So what gives, 19th century opera composers? Why this weird avoidance to actually set your "African" operas in Africa? Why limit your stereotyping to Asian characters and North African/Middle Eastern ones?

I wonder, however, if this hesitancy to depict sub-Saharan Africa goes across all of the arts. Orientalist paintings usually focused on North Africa, for example:

Horace Vernet, The Lion Hunt (1836)

And Joseph Conrad's book, Heart of Darkness, might very well be one of the first major cultural products to orientalize Africa that was widely consumed by Europeans:

But it came out in 1899. Were there really so few cultural products that depicted Africa/Africans/Africanness/Blackness that held European popular attention before then?

I remain dissatisfied with our knowledge/lack of knowledge of 19th century musical works dealing with African themes and notions of blackness. All of this stuff is much more fleshed out when it comes to talking about the 20th century (Porgy and Bess, Johnny Spielt Auf, Show Boat, etc.). But there's an earlier history here, ripe for an investigation and analysis, one that can benefit from postcolonial analysis, from a musicologist's fine ear and critical eye looking at the score. Heavens knows that I can't tackle this project right now. But I encourage anyone interested in this blog post to investigate further.

The Death of Klinghoffer in Simulcast

Yesterday, the Metropolitan Opera announced their decision not to air John Adams' Death of Klinghoffer next season in simulcast.  Ostensibly, the reason was that the Met does not want to provoke anti-Semitic reactions throughout the world, even though Peter Gelb (the Met's general manager) stated that he did not feel that Klinghoffer was an anti-Semitic work.  His decision was reportedly made after talks with the Anti-Defamation League.  The work itself will still be performed, but its impact will not extend beyond the walls of the Met, at least in the words of Gelb.

The Met better start canceling quite a few simulcasts for next season, then.  Let's start with Wagner, whose Meistersinger is scheduled for December 13.  This music drama not only ends with a grand paean to the great German state, but was heard eagerly by Nazi audiences and has a character who--if not explicitly Jewish--displays a disconcerting number of traits that Wagner viewed as inherent to Jews.  Beckmesser cannot assimilate into society, cannot learn its art, and even has problems speaking the language correctly (this is not my argument alone; Barry Millington has done work on this topic)--all reasons that Wagner gave in his anti-Semitic essay, 'Das Judenthum in der Musik,' that they should not feel themselves as belonging to the German nation.  Whether Beckmesser is a Jew or not is a point that can be debated, but what cannot--or more importantly should not--be ignored are the implications that Wagner puts on this character.  At the end, having lost the song contest, Beckmesser is denied a wife due to his inability to learn a society's art.  His rival Walther, on the other hand, takes to the form naturally, even if his interpretation of the song rules is revolutionary.  Walther, then, belongs inherently to Nuremburg's society.  Beckmesser is tolerated, but does not (and cannot) truly belong--and with him, his bloodline will die.  So Peter Gelb, you better take this one off the simulcast too.

Other works that are being broadcast next year include Carmen and Tales of Hoffmann.  The character of Carmen may be a Jew, which was a common nineteenth-century understanding of the tale (again, not my take on it, Sander Gilman has written on this). Hoffmann features a prominent Jewish character in the third act named Peter Schlemiel, who has lost his shadow (in some versions of this story, he sold it to the Devil for an endless bag of gold).  So I guess the Met with either omit Act 3 in its entirety, which would be a shame without the barcarolle, or not do the simulcast.  The term 'Schlemiel' was taken from a Yiddish expression.  One could argue, I suppose, that Offenbach would not likely portray a character in an anti-Semitic way, since he was Jewish and was often the target of anti-Semitism--particularly that of Wagner.  But this completely oversimplifies the situation. 

And that is precisely what the Met is doing by omitting Klinghoffer from its simulcast program.  Adams' operas seek to document recent history, but Klinghoffer is the only one to date that remains controversial.  Nixon in China is a series of character studies from a significant moment in history.  It is a great opera, but not a very controversial work because it did not focus on politics and instead looked at individuals.  Doctor Atomic was a fine opera, but eschewed controversy because we all came to the same conclusion as our protagonist, Oppenheimer, at the end: nuclear weapons are bad (and won't somebody think of the children?).  Klinghoffer, on the other hand, engages in issues that continue to stir controversy today: the place of Palestine in the world; the function of terrorism; how the Middle East co-exists (or fails to co-exist).  It seems more cowardly to me for the Met to continue staging and broadcasting works that feature characters who could be seen as anti-Semitic, but openly concealing them by pretending that such issues are absent.  Perhaps it is time to take a look at the bigger picture of opera repertoire here and question why Klinghoffer is (in Gelb's words) too much for audiences 'at this time of rising anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe,' but that actual anti-Semitism is okay.  Klinghoffer is a work that questions the concept of heroes and villains (and their victims). Because it garners controversy, it demonstrates its power.  If anything, this work demonstrates that opera can still have a vital role in this world, while the 'museum pieces' such as Meistersinger and Tales of Hoffmann show just how out of touch we have become with the social issues that inform many of the works that remain in the repertoire.

The Long Shadow of Versailles

If you could speak what tales your tongues could tell,
   You voiceless mirrors of the storied past!
Do you remember when the curtain fell
   On him who learned he was not God at last?

Edward van Zile, reprinted in The Story of Versailles by Francis Loring Paine

Hall of Mirrors

There is perhaps no palace as famous in the world as Versailles; in fact, I would hazard a guess that it might be the only palace name that comes automatically to mind for most people.*  In part, this continued familiarity is a testament to Louis XIV, who sought to create the most splendid palace of his day, and in fact was so successful that it remains the most well-known palace three centuries later.  But the reason that it has remained so pertinent has changed over time, and with two (relatively) recent (and prominent) Versailles references, I wanted to revisit it as a historic--and sometimes not so historic--site.

Last week, I rewatched the documentary 'The Queen of Versailles,' which documents the Siegel family and their attempt to build America's largest home just outside of Orlando, FL--a home that they named, without any trace of irony, Versailles.  One of the reasons that they chose the site was that they could see another faux palace nearby, with the nightly Disneyworld fireworks visible from their home.  Adding to the irony was David Siegel's primary source of income, which was derived from timeshares.  One of his most prominent properties was in Las Vegas, another place that takes the re-creation of faux palaces and historic sites seriously.  Regardless, the financial crash of 2007-08 brought work on Siegel-Versailles to a halt since the time-share industry--along with any other industry based on mortgages--fell apart.  The trailer gives you a good sense of them:

 
If you're curious, yes, they do have such gaudy knick-knacks all over the home.  The trailer missed out on some of the many paintings that re-create famous paintings, only with the Siegels in them.

The Siegel Versailles is remarkably similar to the original in a sense.  Louis XIV also wanted to make a palace that he could fill with amazing items to show off to his guests, all of French provenance.  In fact, he commissioned many of the works and even bestowed a patent of nobility on Gobelin, the maker of tapestries.  My favorite new fact about Versailles is that they hired and repatriated Venetian mirror makers to create the Hall of Mirrors, but that Venice then tried to assassinate them to keep the mirror-making business in Venice.  The Siegel Versailles is more global in its scope, bringing the 'best of' goods from around the world to adorn their home.  However, the outcome is, presumably, the same: to project a sense of awe to their guests.  If their current home is any indication, that sense of awe will likely be tempered with a sense of gaudy--that is, if they even manage to complete their dream home.

Construction stopped in 2010 because of a lack of funds and the Siegels put it on the market.  With no takers, they maintained possession of it, and still hope to complete it.  This, too, is a bit like Versailles, which was constantly being renovated and changed.  They have not yet come up with the idea to throw a pageant and raise money, as Louis XIV did in the early stages of construction, but I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually. 2016 update: still not done

The second recent Versailles reference is, of course, Kimye, who purportedly wanted to get married there but were purportedly denied by the French government.  Fortunately, a suitable replacement palace was found in Italy (Fort Belvedere) and the ceremony took place there instead, much to the chagrin of local royalty Prince Ottaviano de Medici.  While I am simply dying to cut this post short and research what the Medicis are up to these days, for now, let's get back to Kimye and their wedding celebration.  As you undoubtedly guessed, the wedding and its pre-game celebrations were completely over-the-top, particularly as documented by André Leon Talley, who was a guest.  His account of the brunch at Valentino's chateau the day before the wedding reads like something out a historical document in its attention to detail and excessive....well, excess.  We are not too far off from Louis XIV here.

Is the semi-sepia meant to convey a sense of history here?

As an aside, I am thrilled to report that Kanye seems to have located a giant marble table--so giant, in fact, that it was hauled into Fort Belvedere by crane.  Now he can finally host those conferences that he was so excited about back in August 2010.

Since Versailles has long been the palace of excess, why deny Kimye the opportunity to marry there?  Undoubtedly, this denial is in part to fend off the inevitable slew of social media mogul/hip hop luminary weddings that would follow (or, more realistically, the nouveau 1%).  But it also suggests that Versailles is now, in the eyes of French authorities, officially a museum piece, a place that should be celebrated for its history but not put to use in the present.  The understanding of what Versailles should be has also morphed over the years as the palace has served as a home to royalty, soldiers' hospital (in Napoleon's time), art museum, and crucial site of diplomacy.  After all, it was in Versailles that Germany was created, when Kaiser Wilhelm crowned himself there in 1871, and it was in Versailles that Germany was humiliated after the First World War.

This is the coronation, not the humiliating defeat

But in hosting such pivotal events, Versailles remained living.  Now it is more of a shadow, despite its vivid appearance, a place where re-creations of royal furniture and furnishings gives the impression of a long-ago time.  The wedding of Kimye might be little more than a paean to excess, but surely this is precisely what Versailles has accommodated for much of its history.

Lastly, a fun piece on The Daily Beast by Kevin Fallen that asks which wedding was more ridiculous: Wedding #2 (Humphries) or #3 (Kimye)--we have already eliminated Wedding #1, making this a Monty Hall Problem.  His summary of the Versailles caper:

The rehearsal dinner? That took place at Versailles. Versailles. Did you read that? I remember going to a rehearsal dinner that had lobster tail on the buffet and thinking that was decadent. Theirs was at a flipping palace. Guests were greeted at the palace gates with glasses of champagne and chauffeured in horse-drawn carriages to be met for their private tours of the palace grounds. Then came the actual dinner party, which included a performance by Lana Del Rey. The grand finale was a fireworks display outside palace. Good lord.

I think this makes Lana Del Rey the modern Lully.  There is some food for thought.   Someone warn her about large conducting staffs.

*I'm cool with viewing Neuschwanstein as most recognizable since it was the model for the Disney castles, but I suspect that far fewer people know its name.

National Anthems: Should Players Be Forced to Sing Them?

The world cup is coming up soon, and there's already tons of drama surrounding the event. What I'd like to focus on for this post, however, is the role of music in international sporting events.  Zoe and I have written pretty extensively on here about the importance of analyzing performances in history, and the usefulness of historical knowledge in hearing/seeing performances. Music, as plenty of scholars have written about, as *we've* blogged about, is essential to identity formation. Period. Schluss. Punkt. The end.

So it's really fascinating to have the interior minister of Germany, then, come out and say something to this effect. Thomas de Maiziere, interior minister, close friend of Angela Merkel, and descendent of a prominent family of French Huguenots that settled in Germany in the 17th century, recently stated that he found it upsetting that some members of Germany's national soccer team don't sing the national anthem before each match. "I would be pleased," he said, "if they would profess the anthem of their homeland." His comments have already led to articles popping up in national newspapers and magazines in Germany.

Why were his comments controversial, you might wonder. I think, in part, that his comments stem from larger national anxieties about multiculturalism in Germany. (For an excellent and recent piece of scholarship on multiculturalism, soccer, and the World Cup in Germany, see Beverly Weber and Maria Stehle's article). How should we handle the fact that there are many different races/ethnicities living in Germany today, some (white, Christian) Germans have been asking. Unfortunately, it seems that the answer to this question is "not well." Questions that ask who gets to call him or herself "German" and who qualifies for citizenship have received a variety of unfavorable, weak, and often hostile responses throughout the twentieth century, obviously, and are still resonant today.

I should also point out that the usual framing of this question - how do we handle different races/ethnicities living in Germany today - is also problematic because it supposes that German multiculturalism is a new (post-1945) phenomenon. Like Germany's never had different ethnicities or faiths living there before claiming German identity. Huh.

The CDU (the Christian Democratic Union) political party in particular has been adamant in its tackling of what it sees as the "crisis of multiculturalism" that immigrants (usually meant to mean those from Turkey, the Middle East, parts of Africa, Asia, and so on) integrate into a "Leitkultur" or "common culture" that is truly, proudly German. Of course, as a German cultural historian, I then cackle with glee as I watch people hotly debate what German culture really is, knowing that they're never really going to reach a consensus on the matter.

What's fascinating here is how music has (inevitably) become a part of this debate on multiculturalism and national identity in Germany. I think some people might be tempted to dismiss de Maiziere's comments as frivolous or silly, but in doing so they're underestimating the power of music as a community builder. And they're forgetting how important national anthems have been to historical processes of identity formation. Singing an anthem in a stadium of thousands is a powerful ritual that creates emotional ties to the nation. You and thousands of others are all temporarily speaking a secret language together at the same time.

For a case study of the national anthem as identity-maker, let's take look at communist East Germany. In her work on state symbols in the German Democratic Republic, historian Margarete Feinstein notes that within months of officially becoming an independent state, the GDR went about commissioning the composition of a national anthem. It was no mere coincidence that East German citizens had a national anthem before they had an official flag. Because GDR officials believed that musical performance was a powerful way to unify communities, creating an accessible, melodic, and memorable anthem was of utmost importance to them. This song had the potential to consecrate the foundation of their newly-formed state. East German officials behind the commissioning of the national anthem understood that the song would be sung in schools, at soccer matches, at official government ceremonies, and in youth camps.


As much as I might be uncomfortable with de Maziere's belief that we should *force* members of The Mannschaft to sing the national anthem, as a German historian who tends to shout from the rooftops that musical performances have shaped German identities in countless ways, I'm secretly pleased to see someone taking the relationship between music and identity so seriously in German politics.

Members of Germany's national soccer team in many ways represent the ever-changing national makeup of Germany today. Lukas Podolski is the son of Polish immigrants:

 Jerome Boateng is Afro-German (his mother's German, his father's Ghanaian):

 Mesut Özil is a third generation Turkish-German.

Sami Khedara is Tunisian-German:

Many members of The Mannschaft have really interesting backgrounds and stories that reflect Germany's multiracial/multiethnic/multicultural makeup. They are what Germany looks like today. Having such visible symbols of German multiculturalism sing the national anthem might indeed send a message of German unity and acceptance.

Here's where I remain skeptical, though, given Germany's rather poor history of accepting different ethnicities into the national fold: even if these players sing the national anthem loudly and by heart, will politicians like de Maziere believe them?

Schlock is the new Romanticism

Jody Rosen published a fantastic piece today on Vulture about the topic of schlock in popular music and why we do love it ever so.  It was most certainly the most interesting consideration of pop music that I have read in a while, and it provides a comprehensive treatment of those songs that we love even though maybe we know we shouldn't but how can you resist the awesome that is 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'?  Rosen admits that the idea of schlock is a term that defies simple definition, but that's true in any discussion of aesthetics, and at its core, that is what this essay is seeking to do.

Historians and musicologists may hear the echoes of earlier music aesthetics in some of the concepts that Rosen introduces--Rosen does draw parallels between schlock and the Victorian parlor song, but these parallels are far more profound than this genre alone.  For example, Rosen's claim that 'Music is the most immediate, the most visceral and ineffable of human inventions, and its essential power, the trump card it holds over the other arts, is its bald appeal to the emotions, the way a rapturous tune, a stirring beat, a charismatic voice, can override everything, transporting us to a realm beyond concerns about tastefulness or “cool” or even coherence,' is essentially the exact same idea that drove musical Romanticism.  Crucial to this idea is the notion that music's 'trump card' is 'its bald appeal to the emotions,' a belief that nineteenth-century composers held dear whether they were setting texts (and setting them precisely to heighten their emotional content with music) or creating instrumental works that sought to push the listener to 'the realm of the infinite,' to quote nineteenth-century music critic E.T.A. Hoffmann writing about Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.  Rosen also defines schlock as unapologetically over-the-top, equally valid for Romantic music: 'Schlock is extravagant, grandiose, sentimental, with an unshakable faith in the crudest melodrama, the biggest statements, the most timeworn tropes and most overwrought gestures.'  After all, what is Wagner's Parsifal other than a five-hour rendition of 'Don't Stop Believing' with a slightly varied cast?  The 'boy' is from the country instead of the city, the girl is unquestionably 'living in a lonely world,' and with 'strangers waiting' and 'shadows searching,' he manages to overcome by maintaining his faith.

If schlock is the modern Romanticism, then perhaps it is not surprising to find that both movements have embraced similar themes in their works.  Rosen also provides a list of the 150 Best Schlock Songs Ever, although this appellation is not exactly true.  Surely many of the Romantic Lieder deserve a place here too.  What could be schlockier, in the sense meant here by Rosen, than Schubert's Erlkönig as a family drama writ large (and dramatically)?  All of Carmen?  Most of Aida ('O patria mia' in particular, with its plaintive oboe)?  Heck, most opera?  Everything Mahler ever wrote?  Perhaps even the category of music identified by Alexander Rehding as monumental deserves inclusion.  There is a tendency, I think, to assume that schlock is a category relegated to pop music, but there is no question in my mind that a great deal of what we have 'sanctified' as classical music is precisely what Rosen means here.

While Rosen is arguing for schlock existing within the work itself, I would argue that a work can be more/less schlocky based on its performance--whether that be its interpretation or, particularly with later pieces, its video, which can be viewed as an integral means of distribution from the 1970s onward.  For instance, one of the songs that Rosen lists is 'I Will Always Love You,' which I wholly endorse as an inclusion.  Yet at the same time, I'm not so convinced that Dolly Parton's rendition is as schlocky as the more famous Whitney Houston version.  Dolly's is more understated and closer to her country roots in her performance.  It also stays in tempo, which suggests to me that it is not venturing into the territory of the 'extravagant, grandiose, sentimental, with an unshakable faith in the crudest melodrama.'  In fact, in Dolly's version, the melodrama seems to be at a minimum as she carries on through her emotional turmoil, with only the slightest vocal turn after 'you':

There can be no disagreement, however, over Dolly's hair.  That is nothing short of monumental.

I probably don't need to tell you that Whitney Houston's rendition does exactly the opposite in many ways, and that the melodrama is heavily emphasized when consider this song's role in the 1992 film The Bodyguard.  Note, though, that there is no steady tempo near the beginning.  This is a device as old as C.P.E. Bach, a proto-Romantic composer, who did the same in his fantasias (1753) that are considered to be in the 'sensitive' (i.e., emotional) style.  No steady tempo means that the music is being driven by the interpreter's personal understanding of the piece, and we have a tendency to understand this as a direct portrayal of emotion.  All of those added vocal turns are also understood as emotional, a trick that C.P.E. Bach drew on as well:

I want to finish with a consideration of one of the songs mentioned in Rosen's list of 150, Toto's 'Africa.'  Recently, I watched the video for this song, then I watched it again eight or nine times to try and process what I had just seen.  It's pretty spectacular, and now I would venture to say that it is also pretty schlocky/Romantic all at the same time.  I would recommend that you pay particular attention to the way that it dabbles with the exotic, a favorite locus also for Romantics:

Let me start by saying that the drummer here, with his absolute devotion to his playing, is about as Romantic as they get.

What strikes me as most exotic here is that the distant, unfamiliar land is being used (it would seem) as a place to find new knowledge and perhaps even pushing our protagonist to somewhere near what E.T.A. Hoffmann might call 'the realm of the infinite.'  This is not the same exotic as we might expect from, say, the Enlightenment, where it would be a means for critiquing Western society.  Here, it is a place of mystery and even danger--the world's most exotic library, with zebra skins and taxidermied lions on the wall, can burn down in the video, thanks to some tribal guy wielding a spear (and yes, that did really happen).  Our protagonist is seeking something that he could not find in the West, in the song's lyrics, stopping an old man in the hopes of 'find[ing] some old forgotten words or ancient melodies.'  In the video, this unattainable knowledge is represented by the book (cleverly titled 'Africa'), which then burns in the fire.  As a subtle homage to this moment, at the end of the video, our lead singer is sitting on a giant copy of this book.  While our protagonist, here, has sought to decode 'the realm of the infinite,' he is ultimately unsuccessful and must continue on blindly, as though without glasses (cleverly conveyed by the glasses sitting on the ground).

Is Toto's 'Africa' schlock?  I would say yes.  Is this Romantic?  I would also say yes.  I am not sure that these two impulses are one and the same, but I think that they are rooted in similar notions and goals.  If artists/composers/interpreters/audiences believe music is the best means of delivering emotion, then both schlock and Romanticism will remain essential in many styles and genres.  Now, let's take the time to do the things we never had, which doesn't make any sense either.

Does the opera world have a problem fat-shaming women? Is the pope Catholic?

NPR has an article right now that points out five different reviews from London critics that all criticize Irish mezzo-soprano Terra Erraught's weight. Author Anastasia Tsioulcas writes, "What is stunningly apparent is just how much a woman's body matters onstage — way more, if these five critics are to be believed, than her voice, her technique, her musicality or any other quality."

Horrible, fat-shaming, gendered comments include:
"Tara Erraught's Octavian is a chubby bundle of puppy-fat." - Financial Times

"It's hard to imagine this stocky Octavian as this willowy woman's plausible lover." - The Guardian

"Unbelievable, unsightly and unappealing." - The Times of London

These reviews were all written by men.

"Isn't this shocking?" Tsioulcas's article seems to ask us. Ummmmm.... no? Honestly, I'm surprised that the author's surprised right now. There's nothing "stunning" about these reviews.

But seriously, people. Why are we surprised? Have we all experienced collective amnesia or something? And forgotten all of the other female singers who've been targeted for their weight in the past several decades? Does the name Debbie Voigt ring a bell? Jessye Norman? Anyone? Anyone?

Just a reminder, peeps:

Debbie Voigt, before and after her lapband surgery. Thanks, opera producers and viewers for reminding her all of the time about her weight! And not letting it go after her surgery, either!

And here's Jessye Norman:

Let's take the case of Jessye Norman in particular here. Also called "Just Enormous" behind her back, Jessye Norman's size and girth have been big points of conversation for listeners and reviewers alike since the 1970s.  it), and have found countless mentions of her size and girth dating back to the 1970s. Here are some lovely tidbits, just for your enjoyment:

"[Norman is a] large, opulent, dark-hued soprano” - New Grove Dictionary of Music, circa 1991. THE NEW GROVE DICTIONARY OF MUSIC, Y'ALL.

- The Independent (London) in 1991 mentioned "her ample figure" and called her, "big, tall, majestic."

Norman's a really interesting example of how race and gender intersect here in critics' comments. Her size, much a point of fixation for critics and listeners alike, furthered fantasized notions of a big black woman (and all of the stereotypes that this image entails) on stage. Let us consider all of the ways in which listeners have marveled at Norman’s size. The New York Times, January 22, 1977 She has been called “a woman of generous proportions with voice to match,” and Der Spiegel called her a “giant cello made of flesh and blood,” and “an entire orchestra in person. In another review, the NYT wrote, “Miss Norman makes an impressive presence on stage, no doubt about that. She sends out a blinding laser-beam of a smile, she wears an Afro and she is scaled along the lines of Callas in her monumental early years.”

What's fascinating about Norman is that, unlike in the case of Tarra Erraught, it's her girth and size that have somehow contributed to her reputation, aura, whathaveyou as a Wagnerian singer and a Lieder singer. It's just become part of the spectacle that people want to see when they see Jessye Norman sing. And notice how I used the word "see" there. Performance isn't just an aural experience. Obviously. It's a visual one, too.

So I've been asking myself the following lately: have listeners been flocking to hear Norman sing because of her gift for interpreting German Lieder or because she offers an exotic display to viewers? Or both? Is Norman a fascinating Lieder singer because of her blackness, because her performances offer the listener an atypical visual experience in addition to an excellent aural one? The answer to the last question appears to be “yes.” “It is always a pleasure not merely to hear Jessye Norman, but also to see her, because she is so visually dazzling.” (Globe and Mail).“She wouldn't have to sing; she's a spectacle,” gushed one fan of Norman right before a Liederabend she offered on an international tour in 1990. The body of Norman, in addition to the Lieder she sang, seemed to provide listeners with a reason to attend her performances.

It feels kind of like we're in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for women's bodies in opera right now. It can be the reason why people come to hear a performer sing, but it can also be the reason why a singer earns such nasty comments from critics as well.

When will things change, you ask? Well, when opera producers AND fans stop being so weird about a performer's appearance on stage. When they become more aware, perhaps, of the politics of gender and race in performance. When opera companies stop using blackface and brownface in their productions. Because guys, if we haven't even gotten *that* down - I'm looking at you, Hans Neunfels - then I don't know how prepared we're going to be for other kinds of conversations on bodies and performance right now.

So yeah. Be outraged, opera fans. Be angry. But don't act surprised. Don't act like you didn't know there were body politics involved in the opera world. Don't act like merit alone, beautiful technique, and soulful singing are the only things that count in 2014. They're not. 

Oh, Macklemore: anti-Semetic [sic] edition

I feel like we here at SGS may have to start a feature called, 'Oh, Macklemore.'  Because he certainly seems to get himself into controversial situations on a regular basis.  For example, we could have done an 'Oh, Macklemore: Grammys edition,' for that time when Macklemore won a Grammy for Best Rap Album, then sent an email to Kendrick Lamar apologizing for his victory. This might not be such a big deal, except that Macklemore is white and creates music that has been described as closer to pop than hip hop and Kendrick Lamar is black and creates what people more traditionally view as hip hop.  Or there was also 'Oh, Macklemore: gay edition,' when Macklemore declared himself to be a supporter of gay marriage in a song ('Same Love') that was mostly about how he thought he might have been gay, but as it turns out, he wasn't.  If I had to sum up what people take issue with regarding Macklemore, it is that he has these ideas, and they are sort of okay, nice ideas, but they don't really have very much substance, yet his work remains popular regardless.  He is kind of like a Nancy Drew to your Agatha Christie novels, an Oliver! to your Oliver Twist, a 10 Things I Hate About You to your Taming of the Shrew.  A lighter, less substantial hip hop to your hard core, if you will.  Hip hop Lite.

That being said, neither of these 'Oh, Macklemore' situations was directly his fault, unless you count 'writing a relatively trite song in favor of gay marriage' as his fault.  It's not like he decided the Grammy voting or he contributed to the popularity of 'Same Love' with listeners.  But this most recent 'Oh, Macklemore' is, arguably, his fault.  Last week, during a performance at Seattle's EMP Museum, he showed up looking like this:

Oh, Macklemore

What the ensuing online debate suggests is that some people viewed this as possibly a Jewish caricature, while others didn't, and some of the people who didn't are even Jewish, so that should end all debates right there.  Because obviously if some Jews are not offended, then no one has a right to feel offended.  We are getting into some problematic territory here.  According to a post he made to his blog, he most certainly did not, under any circumstances, intend to be anti-Semetic (his spelling) and has even found out about this cool organization called the Anti-Defamation League that is, like, totally against Anti-Semetism (variant on his spelling) and we should all check it out and stuff.  I am harkening back to last week when Kim Kardashian revealed to the world in an online thought piece that racism is a thing, you guys, and while it has not been an important cause to her in the past (even though it was to Kanye), she is totally becoming aware of it still being, like, a thing, you guys.  Quick, someone tell her about the NAACP or something and really blow her mind.

[BTW, you may have noticed that Kim's essay had no typos, unlike Macklemore's.  This leads me to believe that Kim has an editor, particularly since there are so many 'it's' vs. 'its' potential pitfalls.  I truly want to see this person's business card--'Editor to the Kardashians!'--although I'm sure that all of his/her noble work is done secretly]

I don't think that Macklemore did this on purpose--I find it hard to believe that anyone would think that Macklemore was that sophisticated a performer to draw on racist caricatures during a performance of a song that talks about finding bargains as a way of confronting stereotypes about Jews or mocking Jews or whatever he was trying to do.  He's the kind of artist who encourages gay couples to get gay married during his anthem for gay marriage, as he did during the Grammys.  You're giving him too much credit, people.  I am on board with anyone who wants to find what he did offensive.  He may not have noticed what he was doing, but as a performer he is making a statement when he appears on stage.  If that statement is 'Nazi-Era Depiction of a Jew,' then he is responsible for that. 

There is a much larger, and much more significant, question here of the mutability of racism.  What struck me in reading comments about this story is that there is a generation of people (perhaps 'kids today') for whom this costume did not reflect an ethnic stereotype.  In a way, this is a good thing.  I was going to try and quote Kim on this but her writing was too convoluted (editor to the Kardashians evidently does not change run-on sentences); however, I will take the spirit of what she wanted to say and state that being unaware of previously damaging stereotypes is a positive development overall.  If kids today don't interpret potentially racist imagery as racist, then this has to be a good thing.  At the same time, though, how unaware should we be?  Whose responsibility is it to be aware?  Which ethnic slurs are okay, which ones are okay to forget, which ones are okay to appropriate?

This whole incident reminds me of a piece that Rembert Browne posted on Grantland a few months ago about the use of what continues to be the most damning of racial slurs in the US and attempts by the NFL to ban that particular word.  Browne came out in favor of this word, seeing it instead as a term that has been appropriated by the black community to describe (primarily) positive relationships between close friends and family.  For Browne, 'There’s no one answer, but what does seem clear is that the future of dealing with this word isn’t in its history. If using tales and images from the Jim Crow South hasn’t worked yet, it’s never going to work. I promise.'  Here I totally disagree.  You can feel free to use whatever word you want, but to forget the history of this particular term--which has not even fallen into history yet since it continues to be used in a derogatory fashion--is to forget part of a vital struggle that has forged so much of contemporary American society.  And if 'historical' tales and image had no effect, might I suggest that you were shown the wrong tales and images.  Try this one instead, taken from a 1963 interview on PBS entitled 'The Negro and the American Promise.'  This excerpt is from James Baldwin's lengthier interview; Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were also included as part of this show:

This might seem far removed from Macklemore, but I'm not sure that it is.  Macklemore's costume and apology suggests that he did not recognize the problem because he was unaware of its history.  The online reaction might suggest that for many people such imagery is now obsolete to the point where this costume is not associated with Jewish caricature.  Browne's piece, on the other hand, suggests mitigating a problem by ignoring its history.  The key word in both examples, of course, is history, and I think that without being aware of the implications that such performances entail, it is too easy to perpetuate the stereotypes associated with them--even if the agents here are unaware of/unmoved to change their behavior.