Classical Music is Hard for Both Women and Men (4) Pants Roles (A Meeting to Ask the Teacher Questions About Music)

G: As I mentioned last time (2. Opera Singers and Orchestras), female vocalists established their status earlier than other professional musicians.

The pants role in opera is a bit more complex.

M: Haha. Opera pants roles, ballet travesti—Westerners really seem to love cross-dressing roles, don't they?

G: Yes, it is true that Western performing arts repeatedly feature opera pants roles, ballet travesti, and cross-dressing in theater.

M: Famous opera pants roles include Cherubino in "The Marriage of Figaro" and Octavian in "Der Rosenkavalier."

G: One of the major reasons pants roles were born is the issue of vocal range.

As the culture of castrati, which flourished in the 18th century, declined, it became common for female singers to dress as men and take on the roles of young men.

However, it is important to note that the audience felt a unique charm in this.

For example, by having a female singer play Cherubino, that androgynous charm is emphasized, creating an idealized, beautiful young man who does not exist in reality.

The way ballet travesti (the type where a woman plays a male role) is perceived is similar.

As a foundation for this, European culture has long had an aesthetic sense for beings with ambiguous boundaries.

Fantastic beings like angels and fairies, who are neither completely male nor female, or who move between those boundaries, have often been idealized.

M: I see. But the audience's interest in pants roles—or conversely, what composers and librettists intended with them—also has more direct elements of entertainment, doesn't it?

Furthermore, from our modern perspective, opera costumes, such as 18th-century court dress, are essentially a form of cosplay.

The clothing of male aristocrats in the era of Louis XVI was quite decorative and, in a sense, androgynous.

If a pants role is set in a time and gender far removed from reality like that, it can be enjoyed straight as entertainment.

G: Yes, directors are also aware of this point.

In modern productions of "The Marriage of Figaro" or "Der Rosenkavalier," pants roles can easily slip into the context of gender and sexuality.

M: I really feel that.

In other words, art is a framework that, precisely because it is art, can provide what the audience wants to see while maintaining a high-minded facade.

Opera is full of rather vulgar stories, but because it is a work of art, the audience can safely enjoy the fun of gender confusion and disguises.

G: Certainly, in art as well, classical subjects served as a kind of justification, such as 'it's fine to be naked because it's Venus' or 'sexual expression is permissible because it's mythology.'

An appropriate sense of distance from reality is important.

M: Yes. Even so, isn't the complicated setup where a woman in a trouser role also cross-dresses (like Cherubino or Octavian) a rather perverse game?

Making them wear various outfits, giving them various situations and emotions, and watching and enjoying that, so to speak.

That is not the spontaneous action of Cherubino or Octavian, but rather something we are making them do.

Because they (or should I say she?) are young and incomplete, such games are possible.

It is a conspiracy between the creators of the work and the audience.

The above conversation is fiction.
Special appearances: Professor Gemini, Professor Chappy