Opera, Or, the Undoing of Women

by Catherine Clément

Book Overview

Catherine Clement analyzes the plots of over thirty prominent operas -- Otello and Siegfried to Madame Butterfly and Magic Flute -- through the lenses of feminism and literary theory to unveil the negative messages about women in stories familiar to every opera listener.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816616558
• ISBN13: 9780816616558
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 201 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Hey!..

I have trouble liking this because I (never been a fanof Dworkin and MacKinnon writin together or I just don't get 'em..)Opera? I've never never been a fan of Opera So much, but yEs it's reflective of the times it's written in perhaps. Maria Callas, a vision sO lovely, singing "Laksme'" is not so easy to imagine in terms of sexism.. Dido dying in "Dido and Aeneas" in "Thy Hand Belinda"..Is this not gay almost? (Or "Homoerotic" for you scholarly types..) That is by Henry Purcell. Surely,though, the themes are from the times, and so I say..Hey! what can we do but see that historical context? Well, I'm going to go away and go and meet Othello at my tape player now. I got to meet Kiri Te Kanawa and I hope I get to meet her again one day again in ("When I am lain in earth"..) person..

Veritably a rethinking of women's demise in opera, 7 stars

What has Opera done to Women? is the focus of Clement's thougths, short essays on the oppressive emotive cauldron Divas inhabit. The world of Opera scholarship is only (within the last ten years) has seen the vigours of social and political perspectives discussed. Writers like Susan McClary, Linda Hutcheon,Tom Sutchliffe,and Anthony Arblaster have deeply thought works scouring the social dimensions of Opera left unattended since its inception. Clement brings a wealth of intellectual sensibilities as well, a Lacanian, feminist who traverses inside the singers mind while she is singing it seems. And saying, "this is not a nice place to sing." And what does Opera grant it's women always fated for death and domesitication,or prison . Clement's readings traverse the traditional operatic repertoire giving you the opera's narrative as she comments and reflects. The section "Tetralogy of the Ring" incites the chauvinistic world of Wagner,how all gods have power, but the Man-Gods can strip the Woman-Gods of their power when they choose to rebel, as Wotan does to Brunnhilde in Wagner's "Die Walkure" in the "Ring". Songs of Lunatics is what women in opera potray as in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" Girls who leap into space, Tosca and Melisande. Or in Bizet's "Carmen" who has no fixed place, her lightness is always in darkness away from lechery and exploitation. You will feel Clement's compassion for Opera's oppressed cadre,and her wrath in speaking of opera's deeply prejudiced phallocentricism. Indeed this has been the most profound book on opera. It makes you rethink all you have ever known, or didn't know on this most cloistered self-preserved realm of music drama. I had wished Clement had ventured into this century for there are profound examples of positive even rebellious roles of women, as in Alexander Goehr's "Behold The Sun" set in Anabaptist Germany of the 1500's, or Luigi Nono's "Like a Burgeoning Light of Love" with a text by Louise Michel ,where three women visit the war fields of this century and comment.