Rape at the Opera Staging Sexual Violence

• Main Author: Cormier, Margaret (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: University of Michigan Press 2024
• Series: Music and Social Justice
• Subjects: Music; Opera; Gender studies, gender groups; sexual violence, rape, sexual assault, opera, opera canon, canonic operas, opera production, opera in performance, feminist analysis, care ethics, critical production, Regietheater, Regieoper, trauma, rape myths, rape stereotypes, agency, war rape, rape as a metaphor, intimacy direction, intimacy choreography, opera direction, opera director, concept production, adaptation, Don Giovanni, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Salome, Guillaume Tell, Turandot, La forza del destino, Un ballo in maschera
• Online Access: OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: description of the publication

The most-performed operas today were written at least a hundred years ago and carry some outdated and deeply problematic ideas. When performed uncritically, the misogyny, racism, and other ideologies present in many of these works clash with modern sensibilities. In Rape at the Opera, Margaret Cormier argues that production and performance are vital elements of opera, and that contemporary opera practitioners not only interpret but create operatic works when they put them onstage. Where some directors explicitly respond to contemporary dialogues about sexual violence, others utilize sexual violence as a surefire way to titillate, to shock, and to generate press for a new production. Drawing on archival footage as well as attendance at live events, Cormier analyzes productions of canonic operas from German, Italian, and French traditions from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, including Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni, La forza del destino, Un ballo in maschera, Salome, and Turandot. In doing so, Cormier highlights the dynamism of twenty-first-century opera performance practice with regard to sexual violence, establishes methods to evaluate representations of sexual violence on the opera stage, and reframes the primary responsibility of opera critics and creators as being not to opera composers and librettists but to the public.