Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Dido and Aeneas: "a lesbian opera"???

Record: I was an hour early for my first history lecture 'Opera and Reason' last Monday. [Insert applause here]

So. During the lecture, we had to discuss in groups of four about this article written by Judith A. Peraino - "I Am an Opera: Identifying with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas", from the book "En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera".

From the start of her paper, Judith had already proclaimed herself to be a "lesbian musicologist".

Me: "Uhhhhhh. Right. What's this got to do with the opera?" Cass, who'd already read the article, highlighted a few excerpts to us, some of which can be found below:

"... I will offer a 'rebellious' reading of Dido and Aeneas showing how the very ambiguities and flaws that trouble male musicologists provide access for present-day lesbian audiences by inviting cathartic identification with either Dido or the Sorceress.

I've nothing against her homosexuality. I don't care. Just as long as she writes well and has something meaningful to say. But she comes across as almost pompous and self-righteous when she shoves her 'queerness' into the reader's face:

"...and using the notions of cathartic identifications and vicarious pleasure.. I will project backward (using my lesbian hindsight) in order to reconfigure history from the perspective of the margins.

Still following? There's more:

"My experience as a lesbian has no doubt created a sensibility that counsels my taste in music and scholarly pursuits.

"...[In this article]..I have been able to bring together my identites as a lesbian and a musicologist through a particular work of art."

Yes, yes, we got the point. Enough with that already. What about the opera?!

Basically, Purcell wrote this for a girls boarding school around 1770. Instead of interpreting it as a good ol' traditional story of unfulfilled love (Aeneas leaves Queen Dido to conquer Italy instigated by Sorceress, Dido commits suicide), Judith apparently sees tons of lesbian references and connotations hidden in the opera. Simply because it was written for a girls boarding school:

"..could not the role of both Dido and the Sorceress have provided a cathartic experience[she loves this word, doesn't she.] for young women at the boarding school? I can only imagine that growing pains and competition...setting off indulgences in masochistic self-pity or sadistic cruelty with little provocation."

"..the opera with two heroines [Dido and Sorceress] allows for the 'working out' of the underlying homosexual dynamics at play in the homosocial environment of the boarding school."

We were rolling in fits of laughter by then. Masochistic indeed! You know, I spent nearly half my life in all-girl schools, and I don't remember much hanky-panky between girls going on. I'm not saying there wasn't, but it was all rather mild. Just your usual innocuous puppy 'crushes' on your female seniors/teachers. Nothing serious, really. But even if there was, it was certainly not rampant. And no, I did NOT have any of those crushes whatsoever.

Besides, most adolescent girls are usually sunk up to their eyebrows with fanciful notions of love and their one and only 'prince charming'. If YOU were the composer writing an opera to be put up for nubile young girls, why the hell would you compose a lesbian-themed opera?

We agreed that this Judith person was trying to convince Society (and herself) that it's okay to be Other, an Outsider, a lesbian. She's just projecting her suppressed(?) boarding school fantasies, uniform-role-play fetishes and what not onto poor Purcell's creation.

That aside, she made this statement which I h.a.v.e. to quote regarding the unusual short length of the opera:

"I cannot resist the temptation to regard the appreciation of length as a masculine aesthetic."

Ha.

We never got to the end of the article, as we figured it was probably just embellishments on the sentence "I Am a Lesbian, I'm proud of it and to hell with the opera.". We're cool with that, we've nothing against homosexuals. Good for her.

Me: "Who on earth is this Judith? She's mental."

Cass: "Well, we definitely know she's a lesbian."

Julia: "Actually, I'm surprised her article was even published. It's clearly one-sided."

Dave: "Yeah, I wonder who published this..."

We turned to the front page and looked at the reference: New York, Columbia Uni Press, 1995.

Then it dawned upon us: "No wonder she's batty."

"She's American!"

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