(http://www.bayreuth-wilhelmine.de/englisch/opera/use.htm)
Spectators & Sexuality
Dr Charles Burney's tells the notable tale of Farinelli's battle:
"[Farinelli] left [Naples] to go to Rome, where during the run of an opera, there was a struggle every night between him and a famous player on the trumpet, in a song accompanied by thee instrument; this, at first, seemed amicable and merely sportive, till the audience began to interest themselves in the contest, and to take different sides: after severally swelling a note, in which each manifested the power of his lungs, and tried to rival the other in brilliancy and force, they had both a swell and shake together, by thirds, which was continued so long, while the audience eagerly waited the event, that both seemed to be exhausted; and, in fact, the trumpeter, wholly spent gave it up, thinking, however, his antagonist as much tired as himself, and that it would be a drawn battle; when Farinelli, with a smile on his countenance, shewing he had only been sporting with him all the same, broke out all at once in the same breath, with fresh vigour, and not only swelled and shook his note, but ran the most rapid and difficult divisions, and was at last silenced only by the acclamations of the audience" (Abel, 130)
"[Farinelli] left [Naples] to go to Rome, where during the run of an opera, there was a struggle every night between him and a famous player on the trumpet, in a song accompanied by thee instrument; this, at first, seemed amicable and merely sportive, till the audience began to interest themselves in the contest, and to take different sides: after severally swelling a note, in which each manifested the power of his lungs, and tried to rival the other in brilliancy and force, they had both a swell and shake together, by thirds, which was continued so long, while the audience eagerly waited the event, that both seemed to be exhausted; and, in fact, the trumpeter, wholly spent gave it up, thinking, however, his antagonist as much tired as himself, and that it would be a drawn battle; when Farinelli, with a smile on his countenance, shewing he had only been sporting with him all the same, broke out all at once in the same breath, with fresh vigour, and not only swelled and shook his note, but ran the most rapid and difficult divisions, and was at last silenced only by the acclamations of the audience" (Abel, 130)
- Opera seria of the 18th century stages baroque battles between vocal and instrumental musicians for the erotic attention of their audience (Abel, 130).
-Burney's description is retold in blatantly erotic terms: "Farinelli's voice becomes his phallus; it swells, shakes, and leaves the potent rival in its wake, until it reaches a musical climax and induces in the audience a frenzy of applause" (130). This battle for "who could keep it up the longest" (130) drew audiences to the opera; it was not any interest in the narrative of an opera, but rather the rock stars who moved them.
-"Every time a castrato put his body on display by walking out on stage, he placed his sexual efficacy in doubt...and every time he successfully negotiated a climactic aria, he won the battle to demonstrate his potency...his strangely constructed vocal phallus wielded more power than his biological one" (131).
- After a performance crowds shouted "eviva il coltello" or long live the knife; this affirmed the castrato's sexual performance and reminded the audience of "the lack that enabled and necessitated the battle in the first place" (131).
-This clip from Gerard Corbiau's 1996 film, "Farinelli: Il Castrato," re-stages Burney's written account. The film attempts to bring to life the sexual energy of the archived text: the scene shows a young singer strutting across the stage, gazing directly at a beautiful woman as he sings to her while sensually caressing his face against the other performers on stage. This representation suggests a confident body that openly bandies about his sexuality. Following this scene, Farinelli takes the woman off-stage for a quickie (only to hand off this woman to his brother while he opens a letter from Handle). This video suggests that sexuality is a performance, a tool of the performer.
-Burney's description is retold in blatantly erotic terms: "Farinelli's voice becomes his phallus; it swells, shakes, and leaves the potent rival in its wake, until it reaches a musical climax and induces in the audience a frenzy of applause" (130). This battle for "who could keep it up the longest" (130) drew audiences to the opera; it was not any interest in the narrative of an opera, but rather the rock stars who moved them.
-"Every time a castrato put his body on display by walking out on stage, he placed his sexual efficacy in doubt...and every time he successfully negotiated a climactic aria, he won the battle to demonstrate his potency...his strangely constructed vocal phallus wielded more power than his biological one" (131).
- After a performance crowds shouted "eviva il coltello" or long live the knife; this affirmed the castrato's sexual performance and reminded the audience of "the lack that enabled and necessitated the battle in the first place" (131).
-This clip from Gerard Corbiau's 1996 film, "Farinelli: Il Castrato," re-stages Burney's written account. The film attempts to bring to life the sexual energy of the archived text: the scene shows a young singer strutting across the stage, gazing directly at a beautiful woman as he sings to her while sensually caressing his face against the other performers on stage. This representation suggests a confident body that openly bandies about his sexuality. Following this scene, Farinelli takes the woman off-stage for a quickie (only to hand off this woman to his brother while he opens a letter from Handle). This video suggests that sexuality is a performance, a tool of the performer.
The relationship
Michel Poizat considers the performing body to be a commodity upon which spectators can inscribe their power (47). By paying a ticket price to look at this singer, the spectator initiates the gaze “which becomes the means of controlling desire” (47).
What are the spectator's desires?
- "By dwelling on the margin between the masculine and the feminine, the castrati male body permitted its audience to generate sexual desires otherwise forbidden in normal social discourse" (Abel 136). The castrati was an "erotic free space" (136): he enacted both the male (heroes and lovers) and the female (on stage in drag) while occupying neither sexual space (137).
- But was this body a neutral space? I don't believe so. The body was still identifiably marked as a male body. It was also a strange or ambiguous body too, so there is another (maybe conflicting) mark. I believe we see the body as neutral today (while the voice is potent and somehow more alive via singing) because we have so many spectator accounts of what that body made them feel. The body of the castrati is constructed by these accounts; whether in text or even in portraits. Remember the posture of the Turkish Eunuch? Now look at the posturing of the castrati. Even art offers a record which shows us how society wants us to see, remember, and recreate a body. The more closely we rely on historical archives, the more the body of the castrati becomes marked. What does this posturing suggest? An effeminate man? A sensual body?
What are the spectator's desires?
- "By dwelling on the margin between the masculine and the feminine, the castrati male body permitted its audience to generate sexual desires otherwise forbidden in normal social discourse" (Abel 136). The castrati was an "erotic free space" (136): he enacted both the male (heroes and lovers) and the female (on stage in drag) while occupying neither sexual space (137).
- But was this body a neutral space? I don't believe so. The body was still identifiably marked as a male body. It was also a strange or ambiguous body too, so there is another (maybe conflicting) mark. I believe we see the body as neutral today (while the voice is potent and somehow more alive via singing) because we have so many spectator accounts of what that body made them feel. The body of the castrati is constructed by these accounts; whether in text or even in portraits. Remember the posture of the Turkish Eunuch? Now look at the posturing of the castrati. Even art offers a record which shows us how society wants us to see, remember, and recreate a body. The more closely we rely on historical archives, the more the body of the castrati becomes marked. What does this posturing suggest? An effeminate man? A sensual body?
"What a pipe! What modulation! What ecstasy to the ear! But heavens! What clumsiness! What stupidity! What offense to the eye...thou must have observed in the park with what ease and agility a cow, heavy with calf, has arose up...then with long strides advancing a few paces, his left hand settled upon his hip, in a beautiful bend like that of the handle of the old-fashioned caudle-cup..." - An anonymous response to Farinelli, 1755 in "Reflections upon Theatrical Expressions in Tragedy" (Pleasants, 44)
When we think about the relationship between the castrati and the spectator, we inevitably return to the gaze of the spectator since a majority of our evidence comes from that perspective.
Abel imagines a relationship where the castrati wields power over the audience's sexual phantasies:
- "The castrato's body presents an excessive space, an overdetermined signifier, one that provides not an absence but an overabundance of sexual meanings for the audience. The castrati did not offer a blank canvas for sexual interpretation; they bombarded audiences with sexual enticements of every variety" (Abel 138).
- Abel turns to Foucault to imagines how the act of castration represents a public discipline of the body: "Foucault outlines [that] military drills, public tortures and executions enacted submissiveness on the bodies of soldiers and criminals. Yet unlike these victims of public control, if the castrato's body was subjected to an act of discipline, he could, subsequently, turn that discipline toward the audience and employ his subjected body as a weapon for subjecting the audience" (Abel 138).
This is demonstrated in the clip below:
Abel imagines a relationship where the castrati wields power over the audience's sexual phantasies:
- "The castrato's body presents an excessive space, an overdetermined signifier, one that provides not an absence but an overabundance of sexual meanings for the audience. The castrati did not offer a blank canvas for sexual interpretation; they bombarded audiences with sexual enticements of every variety" (Abel 138).
- Abel turns to Foucault to imagines how the act of castration represents a public discipline of the body: "Foucault outlines [that] military drills, public tortures and executions enacted submissiveness on the bodies of soldiers and criminals. Yet unlike these victims of public control, if the castrato's body was subjected to an act of discipline, he could, subsequently, turn that discipline toward the audience and employ his subjected body as a weapon for subjecting the audience" (Abel 138).
This is demonstrated in the clip below:
"To resist the temptation, or not to feel it, one would have had to be cold and earthbound as a German. When he walked about the stage during the ritornello... his step was majestic and at the same time voluptuous; and when he favored the boxes with his glances, the tender and modest rolling of his black eyes brought a ravishment to the heart" - Casanova (Pleasants, 44)
Queer Desire & Opera
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick understands opera to be queer or in "opposition to mainstream, normalized construction of desire" (Abel, 65). She states:
"Think of all the elements that are condensed in the notion of sexual identity, something that the common sense of our time presents as a unitary category... Normatively... it should be possible to deduce anybody's entire set of specs from the initial dictum of biological sex alone. That's one of the things "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically" (65) - from Sedgwick's Tendencies, 1993.
"Think of all the elements that are condensed in the notion of sexual identity, something that the common sense of our time presents as a unitary category... Normatively... it should be possible to deduce anybody's entire set of specs from the initial dictum of biological sex alone. That's one of the things "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically" (65) - from Sedgwick's Tendencies, 1993.
"In comes a pretty-faced abate. His hips and thighs make me think him a girl in disguise...it is Beppino della Mammana, a famous castrato. The Abate calls him over and laughingly says that I had taken him for a girl. He gives me a bold look and says that if I will spend the night with him he will serve me as a boy or a girl, whichever I choose" (Andre 29) -Account from Casanova, 1745
What about the female spectator?
-The desire for the castrati was not a specifically homosexual one, though as time went by, and the castrati declined in popularity, they were marked as "evil creatures who lured men into homosexuality" (Magee, 673). Was this desire specifically a homoerotic one?
-The castrati, as can be seen in the above clip, had a profound impact on female spectators. If men imagined themselves in a relationship with a "conquered...and feminized male body" (Abel 137), how did the women engage in this performance? If men were privately engaging in homosexual fantasies, women were publicly displaying their affections in affairs and scandals (Abel 137). Though women may have been unable to perform directly on the stage in much of Italy and the papal states, they were able to write or mark the body by performing gender (and possibly) changing the role they played in everyday society by performing in the bedroom of the castrati.
19th Century Perspectives & Decline
- For 200 hundred years, or about half of opera's history, the castrati had been an influential part of opera. Their actual dominance, or when they were indispensable, was from 1700-1750 (Somerset-Ward 90).
- Their popularity declined for a number of reasons: dramatic shifts in gender and sexuality (gender is extreme opposites, losing the middle ground), premier of Gluck's "reform opera" which worked to get singers back under control (regarding both vanity and sound), and economic depression in Italy (Somerset-Ward 82)
- Those that lasted into the nineteenth century, openly became objects of ridicule; the castrato "became merely a bizarre anomaly...and so lost the audience's erotic attention" (Abel 145).
- Their popularity declined for a number of reasons: dramatic shifts in gender and sexuality (gender is extreme opposites, losing the middle ground), premier of Gluck's "reform opera" which worked to get singers back under control (regarding both vanity and sound), and economic depression in Italy (Somerset-Ward 82)
- Those that lasted into the nineteenth century, openly became objects of ridicule; the castrato "became merely a bizarre anomaly...and so lost the audience's erotic attention" (Abel 145).