Tea at Trianon: Opera and Race

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Opera and Race

Grand opera was actually one of the first places to cross racial barriers. From the Washington Post:

ALYSON CAMBRIDGE: In “Otello,” skin tone] is integral to the plot line and people sing about it throughout the course of the opera, and I think it is different than say, casting a show like “Porgy and Bess” and having it be all white singers in blackface. That I think is an issue, because you have a plethora of singers to choose from to sing that role. Otello is a specific voice type. There may or may not be a person of color to sing that role; regardless, it’s key to the story line, and there is reference made to it in the libretto. So I feel like it’s a costume in some ways.

Now I’m doing my very first Madame Butterfly, and I had the discussion the first day, my first costume and makeup fitting, OK, are we going to put me in geisha makeup? Are we going to lighten my skin? Obviously there have been many non-Japanese people to sing the role of Madame Butterfly. But also, it’s a part of the story line. It’s on and an talking about, I am a geisha. Geishas wore makeup. Whether I am black, white, green, purple, there will be a certain amount of makeup, because that is a geisha. That’s where I drew the parallel with “Otello.” I had to think about it just because I was in it with “Madame Butterfly,” and I [thought], I don’t really see it that way. I’d be curious to ask a Japanese person, “Are you offended when you see somebody who is not Japanese made up to look like a different ethnicity to suit that show?” But if you’re asking me, who is a person of color, am I personally offended by somebody having makeup to make them look darker for the sake of the opera, I personally am not. I don’t know if I’m in the minority in that. (Read more.)