En Travesti

The Feminine beneath the Pants

Amy Cartwright
4/6/2011
 The operatic stage is one that tells the story of history while continually denying it. In

terms of plot, opera often couldn’t be farther from the truth. From keeping Euridice alive at the

end of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo to omitting Juliet’s suicide in Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi,

opera has been known to be a little more than liberal in its retelling of well-established stories or

myths. Even operas containing historical plots seem to take a generous amount of artistic license

in their recreations. However, more resonant than the action being depicted on stage, opera is

telling us, or sometimes not telling us, something about history and about the bodies that make it.

In her article, “Through Voices, History,”1 Catherine Clément traces a history of revivals

of Beethoven’s Fidelio, whose original setting is the French Revolution, complete with themes

of love and liberty. During the Nazi invasion of Austria, opera directors revived the opera to

highlight how Austria had won liberty through Nazism. It drew parallels between Leonore

fighting for her husband and Austria fighting for its leader, Hitler. After the war ended, Fidelio

was again revived, this time with Hitler depicted as the antagonist, Pizarro. Ten years later,

when the Statsoper was reopened after being damaged during the war, Fidelio was again

performed as a celebration of a “new Europe”. In short, despite the plot and its setting, Fidelio

sent a clear message through its performances, a message that may or may not exist in the plot

itself.

Like the example of Fidelio, many operas are telling us more than an entertaining story.

They speak of something larger than their plot structure or spectacle—they speak to

contemporary perceptions, experiences, and values. Throughout the existence of opera, gender

and the body have been employed in a multiplicity of ways—men playing women, men playing

1
In Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera
2
men, women playing men, women playing women, women playing men disguised as women, the

altered man (the castrato) playing both women and men (though, interestingly, never a castrato).

In short, opera is no respecter of persons, just a respecter of voices. Or is it? While issues of the

body are often dismissed and its signification is sacrificed on the altar of music, one must

remember that the body is the only thing ever present on the operatic stage. The voice leaves the

body, but the body remains.

And thus raises the question, what are these bodies trying to tell us? Specifically, what is

the female body, representing a man, trying to tell us? While many focus on the empowering

and subversive nature of a woman being allowed to represent a man, this in itself speaks to the

conflicted nature of the trouser role. Being neither man nor woman, the trouser role negotiates

between the masculinized woman and the feminized man and in so doing, chronicles a history of

constructing sex and gender.

Making the Trouser Role

Cross-dressing has a long history on the dramatic stage, perhaps even as old as the stage

itself. From the ancient Greeks, to Shakespeare, through the traveling commedia dell’arte

troupes to the Spanish Golden Age theatre, cross-dressing was not only accepted, but audiences

hardly batted an eye at the practice.

It is hard for today’s audiences to understand how such a blatant representation of man-

as-woman or woman-as-man was able to occur without question or concern. Many theories

claim that such representations were “titillating,” and while this may be correct, one must also

understand how audiences of the past perceived sex and gender. In Laqueur’s Making Sex: Body

3
and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, he discusses how the physiological understanding of the

male and female bodies shifted around the 18th-century from a “one-sex” to a “two-sex” model.

In the one-sex model, Pre-enlightenment scientists understood the female genitalia to be the

same as that of the male. The only difference was that while the male genitalia were on the

outside, the female’s were on the inside. According to Galen, “women were essentially men in

whom a lack of vital heat—of perfection—had resulted in the retention, inside, of structures that

in the male are visible without.”2 Since Baroque audiences perceived men and women to be

essentially the same sex, with the female being a less-perfect version, it should come as no

surprise that a man could represent a woman and a woman a man without any confusion.

Indeed, this belief was not only manifest in the theatre but also in everyday life. Though

a modern understanding of the physiology of the body quickly dismisses these claims, numerous

accounts exist of women turning into men. By way of example, Laqueur cites an incident in

which a child by the name of Marie Garnier had been raised and dressed like a girl but “then

once, in the heat of puberty, the girl jumped across a ditch while chasing pigs through a

wheatfield: ‘at that very moment the genitalia and the male rod came to be developed in him,

having ruptured the ligaments by which they had been held enclosed.’”3 This story accompanies

many others in which some form of “heat,” induced by overexertion, puberty, intercourse, or

some other means, caused a perceived biological change from woman to man.

Interestingly enough, a woman could biologically morph into a man, but the reverse was

considered impossible. Citing from William Harvey’s Lectures on the Whole Anatomy, Laqueur

states, “Movement is always up the great change of being: ‘we therefore never find in any true

2
Laqueur 4
3
Laqueur 127

4
story that a man ever became a woman, because nature tends always toward what is most perfect

and not, on the contrary, to perform in such a way that what is perfect should become

imperfect.”4 However, men, by engaging in “womanly” activities, may become

“‘soft and womanish’ [by] curling their hair, plucking their brows,
pampering ‘themselves in every point like the most wanton and
dishonest women in the world.’ Men of this sort seem to lose the
hardness and stability of male perfection and melt into unstable but
protean imperfection.”5

In short, while a woman could physiologically change into a man, a man could only become like

a woman. Thus we see the beginning of the idea of the woman-as-man role being an

empowering one. On the other hand, the man-as-woman is never “empowering” because it

represents a descent from perfection.

What about the revered castrato? Though they were highly favored on the Italian and

British stages, the castrato presented a problem in the hierarchical “chain of being” as he was

classified as an incomplete man. How does he fit into this “great chain?” Thomas McGeary

suggests, in his essay regarding the London audience’s effeminized perception of the castrato,

that

“It would not have been a matter of castratos…occupying a middle

or neutral ground between equal, complementary, opposed poles of
masculinity and femininity—rather, one of descending down the
Chain of Being, of falling away from that telos of masculine
rationality that defines Homo sapiens, to an inferior, imperfect,
sensual feminine.”6

4
Laqueur 127
5
Ibid 125
6
McGeary 10

5
In short, while the castrato did occupy a “middle ground,” McGeary makes clear that middle

meant lesser. Any alteration of the perfected male—be it castrato or female—suggests

imperfection.

All of this flexibility of sexuality, be it through natural or artificial means, translated onto

the Baroque operatic stage in the neutrality of roles. Since women could, theoretically, change

into a man and the castrato, by way of unnatural means, had descended to the “imperfect, sensual

feminine”, the playing field was equalized. As such, the castrato and the woman could sing any

role, regardless of sex. As Margaret Reynolds remarks, “in practical terms this kind of

haphazard casting meant that theatres could simply give their parts to the best qualified singer

regardless of sex.”7

Because in the one-sex model there was one essential sex (male) and two genders—man

and woman—all that was needed was for the singers to assume the signification of man or

woman to be read by the audience as such. Laqueur notes, “In the world of one sex…to be a

man or a woman was to hold a social rank, a place in society, to assume a cultural role, not to be

organically one or the other of the two incommensurable sexes.”8 In the opera, and in other

dramatic practices in which cross-dressing occurred, the costume served as this signification of

man or woman. Men wear pants, women wear dresses. It did not matter if a male or female was

playing the role; the signification of gender was enough for the audience because gender was all

that mattered—or even existed.

Then things changed during the 18th-century, the period known as the Enlightenment—

an age in which encyclopedias were organized and scientific knowledge replaced religiosity and

7
Reynolds 137
8
Laqueur 8

6
tradition as the way in which one came to know truth. In music, compositions were measured,

mathematical, and the focus was on the “natural” rather than the elaborate and obtuse practices

of the Baroque. However, one of the most important changes brought about with the

Enlightenment was the “discovery” of two sexes.

As doctors and scientists began to name and identify differences between the male and

female body, there emerged the understanding that men and women were sexually distinct and as

such, occupied opposing social roles. In a world in which a vertical continuum of the same sex,

with man at the top and woman at the bottom (with a possibility of ascension), the castrato could

negotiate a space. Having fallen from the hierarchical man yet, “not woman”, he existed,

essentially, someplace in the middle. However, in a world of two sexes, one was either a male or

a female, there was no continuum. Hence, the castrato physically no longer occupied a space.

Consequently, he disappeared from the operatic stage around the beginning of the 19th century.9

In a two-sex world it would seem that the demise of the castrato and the solidification of

two diametrically opposed sexes would also mean the elimination of the trouser role. However,

she continued to occupy the operatic stage, and with greater presence and force than ever before.

The period from approximately 1800-1830 marked the golden age of the trouser role in which

the woman en travesti10 assumed the role of the heroic male and lover—the musico. From the

title role in Rossini’s Tancredi, Arsace in Semiramide, and Malcolm in La donna del lago, no

longer was the female voice used in this role as a secondary choice, one employed in absence of

a castrato, but the preferred voice.

9
The castrato was already in decline by the time of Mozart and Gluck as is evidenced by the very few roles
composed for them. However, the last opera by a major composer containing a role for a castrato is Giacomo
Meyerbeer’s Il crociato in Egitto (1824).
10
Italian term for “in disguise”

7
 Why, when the castrato was losing favor on the operatic stage, was the trouser role

gaining such popularity? For one, the aesthetic of the 18th-century for the high treble voice was

still strong. Since female singers had been mix-and-matched with the castrati for about 100

years, when one takes the castrati out of the equation, the female singer is all that is left. As to

why the travesti were allowed to still occupy the stage as the castrati were disappearing from it?

It is likely due to the fact that the castrati, with their perceived lack of sex or gender distinction,

lived life both on and off the stage. However, the travesti only employed their gender ambiguity

in the theatre. At the end of the performance the costume, the signifier of gender, was taken off

and the proper gender was again assumed. And most importantly, the sexed female body always

remained. Even in its inferiority to the male body, the female body, because it is clearly and

“biologically” sexed, posed less of a threat than the ambiguous body of the castrato.

However, this heyday was short lived and as the voice of the castrato haunted audiences’

ears less and less, the tenor soon replaced the travesti as the heroic ingenue. The tenor had two

advantages over the female en travesti. First of all, he was a man, both on and off of the stage—

a definite advantage in the emerging drive toward realism. Secondly, the aural differentiation of

voices cemented the differnce between these “incommensurable, horizontally ordered

opposites.”11 As Naomi André indicates, the tenor-soprano duo led to a striking differentiation

between the lovers’ voices.12 Though André demonstrates that the voice of the mezzo-soprano

trouser role also fulfils this differentiation, as her voice is lower than her soprano lover, the tenor

offers a more striking contrast and helps to solidify the male/female dichotomy. Also, there is

not only a difference in the lowness and highness of the voices but also an opposition of vocal

11
Laqueur 10
12
André 90

8
timbre. While the soprano and the mezzo-soprano occupy different tessituras, the tenor and the

soprano have entirely different voices. In revisiting Laqueur’s theory of sexuality, the hero’s

journey of castrati travestitenor correlates with the gradual evolution of a one-sexgiving

way to a two-sex modelacceptance of the two-sex model.

However, the trouser role did not simply disappear from the operatic stage as had the

castrato. Instead, her position moved from one of dominance to one of periphery, from viable

hero to adolescent boy, from the empowered masculine to the feminized male. These are the

trouser roles that come to mind most readily—the pageboy, the servant, the friend. In essence,

the trouser role becomes synonymous with lack of power and/or a negotiation of womanly

virtues or tendencies. Though clothed as a man, the trouser role speaks, or rather—sings—of a

feminine aesthetic and constantly struggles between the exteriority of man and the reality of

woman. As a result, the trouser role affords audiences a glance at contemporary perceptions of

femininity.

Cherubino and Octavian—The changing face of female pleasure and desire

Perhaps the most celebrated and discussed trouser role of all time is Mozart’s

Cherubino—awkward, mischevious, and most of all, hormonal. Le nozze di Figaro was written

and performed before the popularity of the travestized male hero and yet, as Sam Abel claims,

“The brilliant success of Cherubino estalished the figure of the drag boy on the opera stage, and

the seductive power of this figure served to normalize the practice of operatic drag for all

9
subsequent opera.”13 Certainly, it is the role of Cherubino that most opera-goers think of when

the term “trouser role” is presented to them.

Outside of being a fun-loving part of a fun-loving opera (albeit, with a very serious

message about fidelity and forgiveness), Cherubino stands apart from other trouser roles in his

representation of sexuality. As Margaret Reynolds argues, “[Mozart’s] Cherubino was not one

of the old-fashioned, haphazard, largely innocent travesti roles where the voice was what

mattered and the body beneath was irrelevant. Far from it. This time, perhaps for the first time,

this young woman dressing as a man dressing as a woman was explicitely about sex.”14

In returning to Laqueur’s one-sex model, the issue of female sexual climax is forefront,

even essential, to an understanding of the vertical model of the sexes. Pre-Enlightenment

scientists believed that female (as well as male) sexual climax was essential for conception while

post-Enlightenment scientists regarded it as superfluous. It became “accidental, expendable, a

contingent bonus of the reproductive act.”15 In short, one of the defining characteristics of the

two-sex model, and sexual difference rather than sameness, is a dismissal of the imporance of

feminine arousal. This invariably affected not only what happened in the bedroom but also a

radical change in how women and men were socially constructed. In a world in which female

orgasm is essential to procreation, women were characterized as passionate and sexual.

However, once it was eliminated as a necessary component, women were stripped passionless.

As Laqueur notes, “The commonplace of much contemporary psychology—that men want sex

13
Abel 154
14
Reynolds 140
15
Laqueur 3

10
while women want relationships—is the precise inversion of pre-Enlightenment notions that,

extending back to antiquity, equated friendship with men and fleshiness with women.”16

The characterization of feminine “fleshiness” is most notable in the role of Cherubino—a

boy, played by a woman, who is obviously not devoid of overt sexual feelings. During the

audience’s first encounter with him, Cherubino exposes his passionate nature during a

conversation with Susanna about the Countess in recitative.

Felice te che puo vederla quando vuoi!
Che la vesti al mattino, che la sera la spogli
Che le metti gli spilloni, i merletti..
Ah, se in tuo loco…
Lucky you that you can see her when you want!
Who dress her in the morning,
who in the evening undress her!
who put on her the pins, the laces…
Ah, if in your place…

This excitement and exposure of bursting sexual feelings toward the Countess gives way to one

of the most frenzied and overtly ardent arias in all of operatic literature, “Non so più cosa son,

cosa faccio.” [see Example 1]

Ex. 1 “Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio”

One of the most striking features of this aria is Mozart’s use of the offbeat. Since the aria is

already in cut time with a tempo marking of allegro vivace, the offbeat entrance to the phrase

creates a sense of hurriedness, as if the aria itself is getting away from Cherubino (see Ex. 1). Commented [D 1]: Double check Turabian about specific
format for this.

16
Laqueur 3-4

11
This compositional tool is used in the A and A’ sections of the aria and reappears in the second

half of the aria with Cherubino’s list of objects to whom he speaks of love

all acqua, all’ombra, ai monti to the waters, to the shadows, to the hills,
ai fiori, all’erbe, ai fonti, to the flowers, to the grasses, to the fountains,
all’eco all’aria, ai venti to the echo, to the air, to the winds

Not only is it a feature of Cherubino’s aria, but Mozart employs the same offbeat, frantic figure

in Leporello’s Madamina! Il catalogo è questo as he boasts of Giovanni’s exploits and lists the

number of women with whom there has been a sexual liaison(See Ex. 2). Both arias speak to

their subject’s exploits of love (though Leporello is speaking of Don Giovanni’s rather than his

own), both contain lists of objects (in the case of Don Giovanni, women who were used as

objects) and though Cherubino is read as innocent and playful, both are characterized as

philanderers—often in lust, never in true love.

Ex. 2 Madamina! Il catalogo è questo

However, there is one crucial difference between Don Giovanni and Cherubino—

Cherubino is enacted through a female body. For one so sexually charged as Cherubino it would

be strange for the audience to read the travestized woman as anything but farcical if a

supposition of the “passionless woman” was the dominant philosophy. While Cherubino is

certainly a comic character, he is not farcical. On the contrary, he speaks to a pervading belief in

the sexually passionate woman, a woman who not only endures, but enjoys.

12
 Jump forward 125 years to Strauss’ Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. Octavian is often

regarded as the successor to Cherubino, and for good reason. The similarities seem to be

endless. Beginning with the obvious, Octavian and Cherubino are both played by a mezzo-

soprano en travesti. The other main characters include a philandering bass (The Count—Baron

Ochs), a pretty, young light-lyric soprano (Susanna—Sophie), and a mature, regal full-lyric

soprano (The Countess—The Marschalin). Both Cherubino and Octavian employ the theatrical

element of double cross-dressing (woman-as-man-as-woman), and most importantly, both speak

volumes about contemporary perceptions of sexuality. While Cherubino speaks to the lusty

feminine of the late 18th-century, Octavian exemplifies the post-Enlightenment restrained,

relationship-driven woman.

This focus on relationship is highlighted in the contrast between Baron Ochs and

Octavian. Like the Cherubino and the Count, Octavian and Ochs are both sexually charged

characters. However, while the Count and Baron Ochs are both represented as scoundrels,

seeking opportunities to take advantage of the good-girl, Cherubino and Octavian are quite

different in their discussion of and interaction with the main female characters. Cherubino seems

to almost be drooling at any opportunity to touch a woman but Octavian is far more reserved.

Perhaps it is because Octavian is the ripe-old age of 17 while Cherubino is still passing through

puberty? More likely, the female body beneath the pants simply signified differently in Mozart’s

day than it did in Strauss’.

To highlight the male = sex, women = relationship dynamic, one only needs to analyze

the difference in Baron Ochs’ versus Octavian’s first interactions with Sophie. The Baron Ochs

is lewd, suggestive, and investigates Sophie like an animal, quite literally making references to

her teeth, bone structure, skin color, and even calls her a Kapricenschädel (strong-headed filly).

13
There is no mistaking what is on his mind as he makes suggestions for Octavian to “make eyes”

at Sophie and states: or , Commented [D 2]: There should be some sort of punctuation
here (I don’t have my book on me to check).

Betracht’s als förderlich, I consider it as useful,

je mehr sie degourdiert wird
Ist wie bei einem jungen ungeritten Pferd.
Kommt all’s dem Angetrauten
letzterdings zugut’,
Wofern er sein eh’lich Privilegium
Zunutz zu machen weiβ
the more she is unstiffened
It’s like with a young unridden filly.
It comes all to the husband in the end as benefit
provided that he his marital privilege
knows how to make use of.

However, in Octavian’s exchange with Sophie, he refers to her not as an animal, but as a friend.

Und ich muβ jetzt als Ihren Freund
mich zeigen
Und weiβ noch gar nicht wie!
Mir ist so selig, so eigen,
Daβ ich dich halten darf;
and I must now as your friend
show myself
And know yet not quite how!
I feel so happy, so strange,
That I can hold you;

Though it may be tempting to simply relegate Baron Ochs to the exceptional, it is

noteworthy that in this same first encounter with Sophie, all of the men except Octavian seem to

be encouraging the inappropriate and vulgar behavior. Ochs’ servants chase and harass the

maidens of Faninal’s17 household. Even Faninal himself supports the Baron in his behavior,

caring only about the social and political advantages of his daughter’s marriage. Indeed,

Octavian, not Ochs, seems to be the exception.

Even from the beginning of the opera, Octavian’s exceptional nature is revealed in his

conversation with his lover, the Marschallin. In contemplating her own loveless marriage and

the impending marriage of her cousin, Baron Ochs, she implores Octavian:

Marshallin Marshallin
Oh, sei Er jetzt saft, sei Er gescheit oh, be now gentle, be sensible
und sanft und gut and gentle and good.
Nein, bitt’schön, sei Er nur nicht No, please be not like all men are!

17
Sophie’s father

14
 wie alle Männer sind!

Octavian Octavian
Wie alle Männer? Like all men?

Marschallin Marshallin
Wie der Feldmarschall und de Vetter Ochs. Like the Field Marshall and cousin Ochs.

Octavian Octavian
Bichette! Poppet!

Marshallin Marshallin
Sei Er nur nicht, wie alle Männer sind. Be not like all men are.

Octavian Octavian
Ich weiβ nicht wie alle Männer sind. I know not how all men are.

Of course, Octavian does not know how all men are, nor does he behave like the other men in

Der Rosenkavalier because, simply, he isn’t a man. The female body of Octavian is loudly

signifying to the early 20th-century belief that a woman desires a relationship over sexual

intimacy. Even to the last moment of the opera, when Octavian chooses Sophie over the

Marschallin, this message is clear. Octavian’s encounters with the Marschallin have been sexual

whereas his encounters with Sophie have not been to this point (though there is the ever-present

understanding that there will be in the future). In choosing Sophie over the Marschallin,

Octavian solidifies the feminine desire for relationship to precede sexual relations, not vice

versa.

Siebel—Love, loss, and the second lover

Chronologically and characteristically between the travesti roles of Cherubino and

Octavian is the second lover of the opera—the good “guy” who never seems to get the girl. In

the mid-19th century this role was often occupied by the travesti for a multiplicity of reasons.

For one, these roles were usually depictions of boys or young men, and “the cross-dressed

15
female voice was heard as appropriate, even ‘realistic,’ for the adolescent boy who had not yet

undergone the voice changes of puberty.”18 But more importantly, as Naomi André discusses,

the shift of the female cross-dressing roles from that of the hero to the adolescent boy, marked a

shift in operatic convention. Rather than two females singing the parts of the hero and heroine,

the tenor assumed the role of the “masculine” hero, the soprano maintained the role of the

heroine (though now she frequently died by the end of the opera), and the mezzo-soprano was

relegated to the page boy.19

This shift in roles coincides with the shift in scientific (and consequently, sociological)

understanding of the differences between male and female previously discussed. In short, this

shift meant that now operatic men needed to be realistically masculine and his lover, realistically

feminine. Like the modern day ultra-feminine cheerleader who dates the macho, ultra-masculine

football player, the operatic tenor/soprano dichotomy meant that the man was automatically

perceived as more masculine and the woman as more feminine. So, what to do with those

characters who lie someplace in the middle? Specifically, what to do with male characters that

aren’t very “manly?” Find a woman, put her in pants, and the middle ground is nicely negotiated.

Though it may seem that this compromise is akin to the schoolyard taunt of “you punch

like a girl,” the representation goes beyond accusations of lacking physical or motivational

strength, though this is certainly a consideration. Rather, this practice harkens back to the

Galenian belief in the vertical arrangement of the sexes. Since man is represented as the

manifestation of perfection and woman, an imperfect version of the male, the boy also became

representational of the incomplete man. Though he would achieve perfection in the future, until

18
André 103
19
André 103

16
his development was complete he was still a less-than-perfect man. As such, woman-as-boy or

boy-as-woman was a viable representation. In addition to physical immaturity, the boy (and by

consequence, the woman) was often unable to achieve his objective. He held little, and often no,

power in an (adult) male-dominant society.

With this understanding it should come as no surprise that the role of Siebel is

represented by a woman. In fact, Siebel is just one of a number of operatic roles composed for

the “second lover”—the one who loves the girl but seems almost insignificant in comparison to

the tenor rival— including Urbain (Meyerbeer’s Les Huganots), Smeton (Donizetti’s Anna

Bolena) and Pierotto (Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix). All are representations of a young man

unable to achieve their objective—winning the hand of the maiden.

In terms of voice type, all of these characters are played by mezzo-sopranos or contraltos

rather than the high soprano voice. As is evident by the preference for the tenor/soprano duo as

representative of a masculine/feminine contrast, by the mid-19th century the voice began to be a

marker of characterization. In addressing the general characterization of the mezzo-soprano

voice, Patricia Adkins-Chiti highlights how the low voice became synonymous with the gypsy

and the high voice with that of girls from well-bred families or the religiously pure nuns.20

Certainly this characterization carried over to the operatic stage as the soprano often plays the

part of the sweet, feminine, good girl and the mezzo-soprano the seductress or “naughty” girl.

While the trouser role obviously is not in the same character category as the “naughty”

girl, in reality, the trouser role became a sexual symbol in her own right, due to none other than

those role-defining pants. Unlike the billowing skirts worn by the soprano, the mezzo-soprano

20
Adkins-Chiti 65

17
woman-as-boy donned a pair of revealing trousers. While they certainly were not akin to today’s

hip-huggers, pants offered audience members a much better idea of a woman’s physical form

than did a skirt. As such, the trouser role truly did become a naughty girl. And what do we learn

about naughty girls? They don’t win. One needs only to revisit Carmen to learn that lesson.

And so we find Siebel—love sick and working so very hard to capture the attention of his

dear Marguerite. In his one aria, “Faites-lui mes aveux,” Siebel implores the batch of newly

picked flowers to carry his message of love to Marguerite. Unfortunately for him, Faust (played

by none other than the heroic tenor), via Méphistophélès, has left a case of jewels outside

Marguerite’s door and situates them directly next to Siebel’s pathetic bouquet. Of course,

Marguerite chooses the jewels and in so doing, establishes a metaphor for the tenor versus

mezzo-soprano lovers—the tenor always wins.

Siebel stands by Marguerite but still never obtains her. The same goes for Anna Bolena’s

Smeton, though in the end, he loses his life. While we don’t know the end result for the dear

Siebel, the good news is that unlike the other mezzo-soprano “naughty girls,” at least he lasts to

the end of the opera.

Nicklausse and The Composer—Woman as the transgressive musician

The role of Nicklausse is exceptional in the realm of travesty roles. Many operatic

women cross dress as men to further the plot, most notably Leonora in Beethoven’s Fidelio and

Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto. However, Nicklausse complicates the matter by remaining a man

throughout the duration of the opera, with the exception of the prologue and epilogue. There is

never the concern that s/he will be discovered as cross-dressing because s/he isn’t. The Muse, as

a theoretically disembodied being, simply assumes the form of a man. With this being the case,

18
one wonders why Offenbach would choose to cast this role as a woman rather than a man. In

regards to plot, if the Muse is taking on the “form” of Hoffmann’s closest friend, then why

doesn’t the Muse simply become a man? Certainly a mythical creature is capable of such a thing.

One can presume that without the intervention of the Muse, Nicklausse undoubtedly would have

been performed by a male voice (likely a baritone if one examines the stereotypical “sidekick”

voice type). But nonetheless, Nicklausse is relegated to a mezzo-soprano.

The answer may invariably lie in the age-old debate concerning the use of music and its

ability, nay, compulsion, to arouse softness in and ability to debase its listeners. This is certainly

Plato’s concern as he eliminates the music of the flute, lyres with three corners and complex

scales, and other many-stringed, curiously-harmonized instruments21 from his Republic. These Commented [D 3]: Shouldn’t this still go at the end of the
sentence?

instruments were capable of playing harmonies other than the Dorian and Phrygian, harmonies

known for arousing courage and temperance and used in militant situations. The other

harmonies are useless and perhaps even dangerous because they encourage “drunkenness and

softness and indolence [that] are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians.”22 Any

music that is not used for military purposes is completely eliminated.

And where is Nicklausse positioned in the debate for or against music? S/he is

unmistakably situated on the pro-music fence. In fact, there would be no opera without this

message. In the oft-omitted “Violin Aria,” Nicklausse’s objective is clearly to move Hoffmann

toward a life devoted to music and poetry as s/he sings:

Vois sous l’archet frémissant Look under the quivering bow

Vibrer la boîte sonore,
Entends le céleste accent
De cette âme qui s’ignore.
Ecoute passer dans l’air
Le son pénétrant et clair
Vibrates the sound board,
Hear the heavenly accent
Of this unwitting soul.
Listen to it pass into the clear air
The sound penetrating and clear

21
Plato 71
22
Plato 70

19
 De cette corde éplorée. Of this weeping chord.
Elle console tes pleurs, It consoles your tears
Elle mêle ses douleurs It mixes its sadness
A ta douleur enivrée! To your drunken pain!
C’est l’amour vainqueur! It is the triumph of love
Poète, donne ton coeur! Poet, give your heart!

The reference to the violin is noteworthy in light of Plato’s elimination of the flute for its

ability to create a multiplicity of notes or panharmonic scale.23 Which instrument in Western

music, beside the voice, is able to create such a “multiplicity of notes”? Or is able to bend

pitches and play any variation of scales?—none other than those of the string family, most

notably the violin.

The violin remains a source of great consternation throughout the duration of the third

act. First brought into consciousness through Nicklausse’s touching aria extolling the virtues of

music and poetry, it also presents itself in the deadly encounter between Dr. Miracle and

Hoffmann’s lover, Antonia. In what is considered to be the highlight of the entire opera,24 the

violin proves to be the sinister instrument accompanying Antonia’s death. As Dr. Miracle

implores Antonia to sing with her mother, the stage directions indicate, “Il saisit un violin et

accompagne avec une sorte de fureur” (Grabbing a violin and accompanies with a sort of fury).

After Antonia hears her mother’s voice and Miracle works to convince her to join in singing, the

stage directions again indicate, “Miracle joue du violin avec furie” (Miracle plays the violin with

fury). It is precisely following this that Antonia resigns to Miracle’s enticing and sings to her

death. Once advocated as a source of great comfort and beauty, the violin now becomes part of a

violent undoing.

It is here that Nicklausse represented in the form of the female body is important.

Miracle is played by a bass or bass-baritone, often perceived as the most masculine of all voice

23
Plato 71
24
Dibbern 126

20
types. Conversely, Nicklausse is sung by a mezzo-soprano, the “low and melodious”25 feminine Commented [D 4]: Again, check position of footnote.

voice. Both use and are accompanied by the violin. However, Miracle demonstrates the violin’s

sinister abilities, and arguably, all instruments capable of creating a “multiplicity of notes,” while

Nicklausse extols them. In short, in addressing the qualities of music, the masculine exposes

while the feminine embraces.

Plato certainly believed women to be more prone to using the inappropriate, non-militant

music when he states, “Then these, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a

character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men (emphasis added).”26 Though he

argues they are also worthless to the woman, men and women are placed on different planes.

Clearly women have a greater propensity to utilize the “harmonies expressive of sorrow.”27

The issue of music’s effeminacy is also considered in Heller’s examination of the

treatment of Achilles in light of Metastasian operatic reform. When considering the story of

Achilles, modern audiences often think of the great warrior whose “Achilles heel” caused his

eventual demise. However, Enlightenment audiences were frequently presented with the

moment in which Achilles, who has been disguised in feminine attire, reveals his masculine

identity after Ulysses mingles weapons among jewels. In fact, it was the most frequently painted

scene from the hero’s life from the 16th through the 19th centuries. It was also the pivotal

moment in Metastasio’s Achille in Sciro.

In Metastasio’s libretto, the lyre is included as part of Achilles’ feminine to masculine

transformation. As he prepares to leave for war the libretto states:

E questa centra And this lyre,

25
Adkins-Chiti 65
26
Plato 70
27
Plato 70

21
 Dunque è l’arme d’Achille? Ah! no; la sorte
Altre n’offre, più degne. A terra, a terra,
[Gette la centra e va all’armi
portate co’ doni d’Ulisse.]
Vile stromento. All’onorato incarco
Dello scudo pesante [Imbraccia lo scudo.]
Torni il braccio avvilito. In questa mano
Lampeggi il ferro. A rincomincio adesso
[Impugna la spade]
A ravvisar me stesso.
Is this the weapon for Achilles? Ah! no fate
Offers another, more worthy. To earth, to earth
[Throws down the lyre and goes
towards the arms carried in with
the gifts of Ulysses.]
Vile instrument. To the honoured charge
Of the heavy shield [He puts on the
shield.]
My arms regain strength. In this hand
The sword flashes. I begin now
[He seizes the sword.]
To recognize myself.

Heller argues the reason for this emphasis on the moment of masculine discovery—this

rejection of musical instruments and singing—is a response to 18th century opera critics who

were concerned about the affects of music and the associations between singing and

effeminacy.28 “The issue here is not merely that Achilles rejects feminine interests for more

typically masculine pursuits. By rejecting his skirt for armour and throwing down his lyre in

favor of a sword, he abandons the ambiguity of gender that was integral to the conventions of

seicento opera.”29 The message of Achille in Sciro is clear: music is equal to effeminacy. Commented [D 5]: What does this mean?

And thus we return to Nicklausse, the ambiguous and problematic, “in the form of a

man” character, represented in the body of a live woman. S/he not only extols the power of

music—that is the sole purpose of the Muse’s transformation. In light of such a strong advocacy

for music, it is logical that Offenbach would choose a woman to embody such a role.

Considering this, is it any surprise that Strauss’ passionate, overzealous, Composer is

represented in the body of a woman? Like Nicklausse, the Composer praises the power of music

in the quintessential aria “Sein wir wieder gut”:

Was ist denn Musik? What is then music?

28
Heller 567
29
Ibid. 567

22
 Musik ist eine heilige Kunst, Music is a sacred art,
zu versammeln alle Arten von Mut Which brings together all varieties of courage
wie Cherubim um einen strahlenden Thron, like cherubim around a shining throne,
Und darum ist sie die heilige and for this reason it is the most holy
unter den Künsten! ` among the arts!
Die heilige Musik! The sacred music!

However, more than praising, the Composer worships music, this “sacred art,” as is evident in

the biblical reference to the cherubim. The cherubim were placed east entrance to the Garden of

Eden, along with the flaming sword, “to keep the way of the tree of life.”30 By referring to the

cherubim the Composer makes it clear, at least in his mind, that music is the gate to life eternal.

In making this religious connection to music, the Composer opens a whole new point of

discussion in addition to the Platonian and Greco- concern for music’s effeminate nature. Within

the realm of Christianity, the role of music and its legitimacy have oft been contested—some

scriptures and religious entities in support and others in refutation. The Torah clearly points to

instrumental music as debase for Jubal, a descendant of Cain, is “the father of all such as handle

the harp and organ”31 and in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he plainly encourages the melody of

the heart, as opposed to the melody of the voice.32 However, the Psalms describe the praising of

God through instrumental music.33 Like music, is there any other figure in Christendom as

simultaneously praised and scorned as Mother Eve, she from whom all women descend? With

such a contested issue as the spiritual nature of music, is it any wonder that a woman would be

chosen to embody one who promotes it?

In a post-Galenian world in which the masculine/feminine dichotomy is primary, the

trouser role negotiates a space in which practicing composers, in this case, Offenbach and

30
Gn 3:24
31
Gn 4:21
32
Eph 5:19
33
Psalms 150

23
Strauss, can exist. While embracing music, for many, a philosophically feminine undertaking,

the actual composers still remain essentially male. Thus the male representation in combination

with the female body allows for the mutual existence of the feminine and masculine.

Conclusion

Trouser role, breeches part, the travesti—without even considering the individual

dramatic roles, the terms themselves indicates that which is truly essential: the female body

beneath. The pants as signifier simply inscribe meaning, a mark of gender on an already sexed

body. However, while we assume that the male or female body is a constant, the same society

that supplies meaning to the exteriority of gender also supplies meaning to the interiority of the

body. What it means to be “female” or “male,” “feminine” or “masculine,” has and will

continue to change. The trouser role is just one way that these meanings haunt the operatic

stage, beckoning audiences to not only listen, but to consider the body that remains.

24
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