Seriously?

Today in class we had a pretty lively discussion on the portrayal of women and stereotypes in opera. I feel like operas written during the 1700 and 1800’s have portrayed individuals based off of the ideals of the time. In my opinion it makes sense then, for modern operas which take place during the 18th and 19th centuries, to also up hold those same ideals, as unfortunate and narrow minded as they may be, because they were the norm at the time.

Modern operas dealing with issues of today, or even over the last fifty years however, which still show women as these fragile, irrational and out of control people, really annoy me. I take no issue with women or men being portrayed as emotional, what bothers me is that women time and again are shown as going beyond being upset and right into crazy town. Men and women are different and show their emotions in very different ways, but I think it is safe to say that when most women are upset, they don’t become unstable and lose their grips on reality. The music of the female leads during heightened emotional states reflects a loss of control. We discussed in class today that the music often becomes erratic, the intervals grow wider and are all over the place, there’s no feeling of being grounded, and this is used to portray a women going mad.

The same goes for men and their stereotypes. I think that most male characters are allowed to show anger and passion, but God forbid they shed a tear, or show any sign of an emotion that could be taken as weakness. During emotional scenes involving men, their music changes, but differently then women’s music, you never get the sense that they are going crazy, in fact to me, the music sounds stronger and more powerful, which I tend to see and hear happening during moments of rage or anger. It’s not that men don’t lose control; they just lose it in a way that is more “acceptable”. Men go mad with anger, women go mad from sadness, (and it’s usually because of the men in their lives.) It is definitely a hope of mine to see an increase in the number of operas written that reflect more realistic displays of emotion by both men and women in regard to both plot and music.