A Gendered Argument: Men’s and Women’s Stories in Performance

Abstract

I have always been fascinated by the way in which our cultural products seem to be influenced by our cultural practices, and our cultural practices seem to be influenced by our cultural products. With regards to the classical vocal repertoire, this means that not only do we have a record of society contained in the music and text of our repertoire, and that we potentially have the ability to influence the society around us with it, but that our current cultural practices also influence how we produce, or reproduce, these cultural products. One of the major themes in much of our classical vocal repertoire is the “masculinity” of men, and the “femininity” of women; men and women as opposites; a clear representation of past and present cultural beliefs about men and women. The way in which men and women are represented in this repertoire may seem bizarre to the younger generations of today, because of how different “masculinity” and “femininity” are now in the twenty-first century, compared to hundreds of years ago, when the majority of our repertoire was created. However, perhaps even more bizarrely, the idea of “masculinity” and men, and “femininity” and women seems to have created a divide in our classical repertoire: men very rarely perform works written for women, and women very rarely perform works written for men. Singers that do perform cross-sex repertoire are often meet with personal and professional micro-aggressions about gender confusion, sexuality, and vocal and/or emotional capability. This is in spite of modern writings by psychologists, sociologists and gender theorists that assert there is very little difference between men and women, and that gender (“masculinity” and “femininity”) arises through cultural design. Therefore, what it means to be “masculine” and “feminine” changes with time and place. That is to say, there appears to be very little reason that men and women should not perform each other’s repertoire, other than that past beliefs about men and women still hold sway in society and in our music industry, and continue to inform who is allowed to sing what. Therefore, the intention of this portfolio (thesis and recital) is to achieve two things: Firstly, to investigate how this particular cultural belief of men (“masculinity”) and women (“femininity”) as opposites has been maintained across the centuries, and how this belief still impacts our performance of repertoire today; particularly as regards the limitations that appear to have been placed on cross-sex performance of repertoire. Then, secondly, to demonstrate that an individual’s sex should not be a limiting factor in choice, and performance, of repertoire. My hope is that this thesis may contribute not only to an increased exploration of cross-sex performance of repertoire, but also, that these performances may in turn encourage changes in the way that men, women, “masculinity,” and “femininity” are perceived in society.