Queer Opera

The ability to create original music is perhaps the most challenging paradigm to articulate, given that music is inherently emotional, non-verbal and ‘semiotic’, making it assessable in primarily subjective terms. My composition portfolio includes two operas, one based on my interpretation of “The Strange Tale Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” by the Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the other on my own libretto relating the scandalous downfall of the Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde. The emotional engagement of an audience with particular inclusion of a focus on three dimensional stage representations of complex same gender relationships are primary emphases of my doctoral study in music composition. Very few such depictions are to be found in the grand opera repertoire, by contrast with television and cinema where, over the years, this has gradually changed, notwithstanding the simplistically tragic portrayals that still abound. When it comes to the question of ‘style’ for my proposed operatic work, this has presented a major problem for me when trying to reconcile the emotional ‘accessibility’ of my commercial work with the intellectual imperatives of acadaemia, despite the fact that some stylistic features of ‘Contemporary Classical’ as exemplified by Serialism, Minimalism, Aleatory and the Avant Garde have already on occasion trickled into the ‘Contemporary Popular’ arena, especially through the medium of film, and more rarely in the reverse direction - "Art Imitating Life". Emotional engagement does not necessarily have to stand in opposition to intellectual rigour, and thus a work can be ‘accessible’ to an audience without ipso facto lacking substance and thus longevity. Moreover, the inherent complexity and detail of a great work may take time to appreciate through repeated exposure, and these attributes alone may of themselves generate emotional engagement.

YOUNG, 2019

Little has been written about the reasons gay men choose opera as a venue for professional achievement and social acceptance. Espousing an ethnographic approach, the current article sets out to question their motives. Applying Bourdieu’s concepts of field, cultural capital and habitus, I suggest looking at the opera as a cultural setting, which provides young gay men with a venue for coming out of the closet and, should they be talented and meticulous, achieving professional and social positions. In constituting a safe zone for expressing closeted emotions, engagement in operatic activities enables the development and application of gay capital, as well as cultural capital, such that gayness is interpreted as an invaluable resource, granting them professional and social acceptance.

Transposition, 2021

La revue Transposition est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International.

The Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies, 2012

Performance Research, 2022

How do queer intellectuals produce dramatic texts for utopian archival projects? How do (once) hidden theatre practices exist in a complicated relationship with the claims about covert or clandestine performances in the messy afterlives of such unorthodox archives? This essay explores such processes and how they unfolded in the context of Turkish opera by focusing on the work of Rıza Nur (1879-1942). Rıza Nur was a queer Turkish politician who created an archive of resistance to propagate his ultra-nationalist and eugenicist utopian vision for Turkey’s future during the country’s formative years. In addition to his proposed programs for Turkey’s revivification and the establishment of an ultra-nationalist party, the archive also included Nur’s memoirs, essays, poetry, and two of his librettos. Nur trusted this archive to multiple European libraries on the condition that it would not be accessible until 1960. Nur’s desire was that once his archive would become public, it would transform Turkish people’s understanding of the past, make them recognize him as an unappreciated true leader, and adopt his utopian vision. Rıza Nur’s librettos demonstrate how operatic writing can function as an undercover strategy of queer self-making. The librettos reveal how archives function not only as repositories but also as sites of production, and how dramatic texts can gain queer dimensions and political significance in relation to other texts. Archives can thus provide crucial insights into discrete theatre practices and create important opportunities to review and revise performance historiographies. Nevertheless, the limited scholarly attention Nur’s librettos have received suggests how disciplinary and methodological conventions may render dramatic texts invisible even when they are in plain sight. Finally, Nur’s ultra-nationalist and eugenicist utopian archive challenges the tendency to associate queer utopian performance with progressive politics.

2020

Opera, it would appear, has developed a taste for sadomasochism. For decades now, radical stage directors have repeatedly dressed canonical operas—from Handel and Mozart to Wagner and Puccini, and beyond—in whips, chains, leather, and other regalia of SM and fetishism. Deviant Opera seeks to understand this phenomenon, approaching the contemporary visual code of perversion as a lens through which opera focuses and scrutinizes its own configurations of sex, gender, power, and violence. The emerging image is that of an art form that habitually plays with an eroticization of cruelty and humiliation, inviting its devotees to take sensual pleasure in the suffering of others. Ultimately, Deviant Opera argues that this species of opera fantasizes about breaking the boundaries of its own role-playing, and pushing its erotic power exchanges from the enacted to the actual.

2016

The Sound of Žižek, 2022

Opera may not be Žižek’s central intellectual interest, but it is never far from his theoretical purview. He is especially engaged by the music dramas of Richard Wagner, and when he writes or speaks about opera he invariably uses Wagner as his main theoretical focus. However, it is in more recent operas that I see several instances of real synergy with the thought of Žižek. In this text I examine some cases of recent (post)operas from the perspectives of concepts and strategies developed by Slavoj Žižek. Those are: The Fall of the House of Usher of 1987 (composer: Philip Glass, Libretto by Arthur Yorinks based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe. stage director: Serge van Veggel), Dog’s Heart of 2008-09 (composer: Alexander Raskatov, libretto: Cesare Mazzonis, stage director: Simon Mc Burney), Aliados [Allies] of 2010-2013 (composer: Sebastian Rivas, libretto: Esteban Buch, stage director: Antoine Gindt) and Thea-tre of the World of 2013-2015 (composer: Louis Andriessen, libretto: Helmut Krausser, stage director: Pierre Audi). I discuss those operas with reference to Žižek’s cinematic project The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (dir. Sophie Fiennes, 2006). Looking back to Mark Fisher’s discussion of capitalist realism through the lens of the singing voice, it may become obvious that singing as a state of extreme fragility is more pertinent than ever before in the continuing uncertainty found in all spheres of human existence today. When Madeline’s voice is heard singing in The Fall of the House of Usher, it is divorced from the body, threatening us by virtue of its unpredictable larger-than-life dimension. It is a metaphor of uncertainty. When the dog Sharik sings with several voices in Dog’s Heart, it is clear that the author manipulates this extreme fragility, playing with identity, but at the same time demonstrating the extreme power of singing. The singing that takes over the character of Margaret Thatcher in Aliados demonstrates that power. And finally the Witches in Theatre of the World, their grotesque voices threatening us with the famous Ode, are erased by the eternal power of an ecstatic singing (Sor Juana) that engulfs our whole planet, relativizing the struggles and troubles of the human condition.

2009

The classical operatic canon is the result of centuries of cultural influences. In a post-civil rights movement society, musicians are challenged to reexamine their repertoire. Performers must understand their responsibility to balance the authenticity of a work with the offensive cultural norms that are reflected in it. In response to this awareness, we must asses whether censorship or alteration of a work is appropriate in the name of sensitivity or if works deemed distasteful should be purposely disseminated as a vehicle for education. Where can performers find the balance between racial awareness and the preservation of a musical canon? The key lies in an exploration of three culturally influenced components of a performance: composer, musicians, and audience. The first, composer, is a consideration of the context of the piece’s conception—who was the composer, what were her or his influences, and how familiar was she or he with the culture that is being presented? Secondly, the identity and background of the performers are extremely pertinent as they determine the credibility of the message conveyed in the performance. Finally, factors such as age, gender, geographic location, and race of an audience directly influences what kinds of culturally charged music can be performed and whether there can be an opportunity for education through the performance. By evaluating these three factors, performers can format a performance in a more enlightened and supportive manner.

Don’t Be Quiet, Start a Riot! Essays on Feminism and Performance, 2016