Opera and queer 3002-KON2020K24
At one point in Paul Rudnick's play Jeffrey, the title character, who claims to have slept with 5000 different men, speaks directly to the audience: 'I know it's wrong to say that all gay men are obsessed with sex. Because that's not true. All human beings are obsessed with sex. All gay men are obsessed with opera.' The aim of the seminar is to analyze the relationship between opera and nonheteronormative phenomena.
We will try to trace how opera as art form and social practice can be a factor in shaping identity and whether it has a critical potential or is it only stereotype which should be fight off when we would like to talk about opera as a queer art.
1. Introduction
2. State of research
Queer in opera:
3. Opera queen as a phenomenon
4. Diva-cult:
male admiration – Maria Callas
female praise – Brigitte Fassbaender
Polish perspective: Ewa Podleś, Violetta Villas, Aldona Orłowska
5. Motives: Octavian (Richard Strauss's „Der Rosenkavalier”)
6. Composers: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Benjamin Britten
7. Movies: „Philadelphia” (dir. Jonathan Demme),
Queering opera:
8. Experience – Purcell's „Dido and Aeneas”
9. Singers:
castrato as a phenomenon
countertenor in contemporary culture – Klaus Nomi
anti-diva – Juliana Snapper
10. Works: Péter Eötvös' „Angels in America”, Charles Wuorinen's „Brokeback Mountain”
11. Stagings: Peaches and Monteverdi's „L'Orfeo” (Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin),
12. Movies: „Medea” (dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
K_W02, KW_03,
K_U01, K_U02, K_U03, K_U05, K_U07, K_U08,
K_K01, K_K02, K_K03,
Assessment criteria
PR, OA
Bibliography
Selected bibliography:
1. Philip Brett, Britten and Grimes, „The Musical Times” December 1977, vol. 118, no. 1618, s. 995-1000.
2. Casta Diva. Der schwule Opernführer, hrsg. von Rainer Falk, Sven Limbeck, Berlin 2019.
3. Terry Castle, In Praise of Brigitte Fassbaender: Reflection on Diva-Worship, w: En travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, ed. by Corinne E. Blackmer, Patricia Juliana Smith, New York 1995, s. 20-58.
4. Brigitte Cormier, Ewa Podleś. Contralto assoluto, przeł. Ewa Adamusińska-Vouland, Kraków 2013.
5. Bogusław Deptuła, Queer as opera, „Dwutygodnik. Strona Kultury” 2009, nr 19, http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/692-queer-opera-queer-as-opera.html.
6. Witold Filler, Violetta Villas. Tygrysica z Magdalenki, Warszawa 1993.
7. Roger Freitas, The Eroticism of Emasculation: Confronting the Baroque Body of the Castrato, „Journal of Musicolgy” Spring 2003, vol. 20, no. 2, s. 196-249.
8. John Gill, Burying Benjamin Britten, w: tegoż, Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Music, London 1995.
9. Maciej Jabłoński, Casto divo. Callas i gest cierpiącej inności, „Dwutygodnik. Strona Kultury” 2009, nr 19, http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/685-queer-opera-casto-divo-callas-i-gest-cierpiacej-innosci.html.
10. Maciej Jabłoński, Podleś triumphans, w: tegoż, Między ćwiartowaniem a tłumaczeniem snów. Eseje i ułamki z krytyki muzycznej, Poznań 2011, s. 185-190.
11. Bogusław Kaczyński, Dzikie orchidee, Warszawa 1983.
12. Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queenʼs Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire, New York 1993.
13. José Máximo Leza, “Brokeback Mountain”: ‘Why Can’t I Say What I Want to Say?’, w: Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie, ed. by Susan Bennett, Sonia Massai, London 2018.
14. Joanna Mizielińska, Idee pogubione w czasie – polityka LGBT vs teoria queer w Polsce i na Zachodzie, „Przegląd Kulturoznawczy” 2012, nr 3.
15. Monica B. Pearl, The City of Brotherly Love: Sex, Race and AIDS in “Philadelphia”, “EnterText” 2003, no. 2.3.
16. Judith A. Peraino, I Am An Opera: Identifying with Henry Purcellʼs „Dido and Aeneas”, w: En travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, ed. by Corinne E. Blackmer, Patricia Juliana Smith, New York 1995, s. 99-131.
17. The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance and Musical Theater, ed. by Claude J. Summers, Berkley 2004.
18. Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, ed. by Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood, Gary C. Thomas, 2nd Edition, New York 2006.
19. Paul Robinson, The Opera Queen: A Voice from the Closet, „Cambridge Opera Journal” November 1994, vol. 6, no. 3, s. 283-291.
20. Barth David Schwartz, Medea and Callas, w: tegoż, Pasolini Requiem, New York 1992.
21. Magda Szczęśniak, Queerowanie historii, czyli dlaczego współcześni geje nie są niczyimi dziećmi, „Teksty Drugie” 2012, nr 5.
22. Anna Taszycka, Queer potrzebny od zaraz, „Dwutygodnik. Strona Kultury” 2009, nr 19, http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/711-queer-operaqueer-potrzebny-od-zaraz.html.
23. Gary Le Tourenau, Kitsch, Camp, and Opera: „Der Rosenkavalier”, „Canadian University Music Review” 1994, no. 14, s. 77-97.
24. Błażej Warkocki, Queerowanie kanonu, „Dwutygodnik. Strona Kultury” 2009, nr 19, http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/694-queer-opera-queerowanie-kanonu.html.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: