Music and gender: how men are exoticised and/or orientalised in opera. |
By: Roger Hansford |
In any of the arts . . . women may be the equals of men. There is only one respect in which physiology insists they must be not merely equal but dominant: they have more interesting singing voices. [Brigid Brophy, 1]
Given that a link between music and gender is usually constructed between the exotic and women, rather than the exotic and men, it might seem pointless to discuss the ways in which men are exoticised or orientalised in opera. This reading is supported by Mary Hunter who states that ‘current considerations of Orientalism [are] that “the Orient”, “the Other”, and “the feminine” are inextricably tied up with each other’ [2]; also by Susan McClary who captures the trope of ‘the time-honoured association between “Orient” and “Woman”’, and describes how the protagonist in opera, like the composer, is usually ‘male, middle-class, European - while the Other is designed to stand in dynamic contrast’, so ‘is usually female’ [3]. McClary even states that one of the principal male characters I am to discuss has ‘a musical discourse [which] is that of the “universal” tongue of Western classical music’ [4], suggesting that this character is not in fact exoticised at all. Nonetheless, my investigation of Don José in Bizet’s Carmen (1875) and Osmin in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) does show evidence that men have been exoticised or orientalised in opera, and provides examples as to how this has been done. In both cases the exoticism or orientalism can be viewed as an integral part of the characterisation, narrative, and dramatic effect of the work.
To appreciate how male characters are treated in opera, we first need to define our terms. For Carl Dahlhaus, exoticism is ‘the attempt to add a musical dimension to a depiction, on stage or in literature, of a remote or alien milieu’ which ‘serves as a legitimate departure from the aesthetic and compositional norms of European music’[5]. For Jonathan Bellman, the ‘distant locales or alien frames of reference’ evoked by the borrowing of foreign musical elements could inspire thoughts not just of ‘foreign lands’ but also of ‘discrete groups within the home society who were regarded as exotic’ [6]. This is because the sound world of the Other means more than ‘familiar versus unfamiliar’; it is a multivalent code describing a people who are ‘happier, sadder, more serious, more pleasure-loving, purer, more corrupt’, and therefore makes ‘a range of forbidden and desirable sexualities’ available to the listener [7]. Thus exoticism in opera may be just as powerful a gender statement when applied to male characters as to female characters. The specialised form of exoticism known as orientalism evokes ‘the East or the orient’, including ‘the Islamic Middle East (e.g. North Africa, Turkey, Arabia, Persia), or East and South Asia (the Far East, e.g. India, Indochina, China, Japan), or all of these together’ [8]. Due to the post-structuralist work of Edward Said, orientalism also has connotations of the nineteenth-century scholarship which ‘not only constructed but was instrumental in administering and subjugating “the Orient”’ as part of Western imperialism [9]. This suggests that the use of orientalism in opera has associations addressing international relations, as well as relations between lovers.
As the principal male character, Don José has a pivotal role in the plot of Carmen. Bizet has him reject innocent love with the virgin, Micaëla, in favour of the passionate love with prostitute, Carmen, and his emotional temperament acts as a foil to the shallow machismo of his rival for Carmen, the bullfighter Escamillo [10]. Given that José differs from his fellow men in expecting to ‘experience something authentic’ in his relationship with Carmen, it is worth investigating whether his departures from Western musical discourse are authentically “Spanish”. The specific “Spanish” elements identified by James Parakilas are use of the guitar and castanets, stereotypical rhythmic juxtaposition and employment of bravura violin writing - hybridising the style of the virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate with embellishment of traditional Spanish melodies - coupled with a ‘passionate’ and ‘elegant lyricism’ [11]. These elements are likely to be present because, in composing his opera, Bizet researched and drew on ‘actual Hispanic music’ [12]. The orchestral part supporting José certainly includes a chordal or arpeggiated motive that may suggest guitar strumming. This can be seen in his Act I Duet with Micaëla [Example 1] and his Act II Duet with Carmen [Example 2]. There are also touches of virtuosity, such as the castanet-like turn figures in the Act I Duet [Example 3] and the rhythmic juxtaposition of his Duet with Escamillo in Act III [Example 4], and José’s final Duet with Carmen is certainly ‘passionate’. Thus the use of apparently authentic “Spanish” stereotypes helps present José as a character with more genuine intentions in approaching women than his fellow men.
However, although Parakilas describes Carmen as the music that ‘still most strongly’ evokes “Spain” in the popular imagination, he also suggests that the music is less specifically Spanish and more a decentered evocation of the gypsies within ‘every Western country’ [13], a reading supported by McClary’s statement that the music of Carmen is ‘only superficially . . . Indigenous’ [14]. Firstly, this suggests that the music of Don José may go beyond plain exoticism to serve as an ‘intermediary’ form of orientalism, designed by Bizet for optimum accessibility to French audiences [15]. Secondly, it legitimises an exoticised or orientalised gendering of José where any of the non-Western characteristics named by Dahlhaus and McClary can be identified in his part:
‘pentatonicism . . . non-functional chromatic colouration . . . bass drones, ostinatos . . . colourful timbral effects . . . simple formal designs and insistent dance rhythms. [16]
Of these exoticising features, McClary focuses particularly on the ‘chromatic slippage’ which increasingly affects José’s music as he succumbs to the exotic ‘contamination’ of Carmen [17]. In his Act I Duet, for example, José still appears to have a chance of resolving onto the diatonic arpeggiations provided by Micaëla [Example 3]. By his Act III Duet, however, his melody is as chromatic as that of Escamillo, including B-natural, C-sharp, D-flat, E-flat and F-sharp within an F major key signature [Example 4], and by the final duet the accompaniment for José’s lines is almost as chromatic as that for Carmen’s [18] [Example 5]. On one level this non-functional chromaticism performs the same role in Carmen as that identified by Ralph Locke in Samson and Delilah: to signify the yielding of the initially righteous man to the dark power of the femme fatale [19]. It also illustrates the fact that, because of his choice of partner, José has descended from the ‘bright public street’ in Act I to become part of the criminal underworld by Act IV [20]. José’s final snatch of melody may be free from chromaticism, but if the close of the opera in the remote and richly-sonorous key of F-sharp major [21] [Example 6] is anything more than an idiomatic Romantic gesture, it could suggest that José has been dragged to a point from which he cannot return, even with Carmen’s death.
That Carmen corrupts José is something conveyed by further exoticisms in his part. Although José’s Act II Canzonetta has him resolved to separate love from ‘honour’s stern command’, he cannot help the interpolation of F-sharps and acciaccaturas, plus a trill on E-natural [Example 7], perhaps reflecting the fact Carmen has made him ‘a dangerously weak link in the patriarchal chain of command’ [22]. José’s comparative weakness is suggested by the fact that his only response to Carmen’s overwhelming sexiness in the Seguidilla is a monotone annunciation of her name [Example 8], and in fact he never has his own tune [23]. This does not mean that his character is bland or unaffected by exoticism, however. According to McClary, his performance is ‘no less invested libidinally than Carmen’s’ [24]. Yet when José adopts the simple structures and dance rhythms of orientalism 25[], it is Carmen’s infectiousness which turns his music from that of honourable mind to dishonourable body [26]. Clearly, the sensuousness of Woman is powerful enough to distract Don José, even though his intellect, not Carmen’s, actually ‘organises the narrative’ [27]. Thus Bizet, perhaps being autobiographical [28], exoticises Don José using specific “Spanish” tropes and generic orientalist tropes, suggesting disruption by female Other to the natural progress of his male Self.
Osmin’s role in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail is to contrast with the behaviour of the Pasha in handling rejection by women. Although the Pasha initially holds Constanze captive, he releases her on discovering that she does not love him; Osmin, however, tries to revenge his rejection from Blondë by preventing her escape [29]. If Osmin is exoticised then his part will demonstrate the specific orientalist style of alla Turca, tropery ‘imitating the effect of Turkish band music’ [30]. According to Hunter, this style can be manifested either through the use of batterie turque instrumentation - including percussion instruments like cymbals, bass drum, tambourine, and the (actually Western) triangle - or by ‘melodic, rhythmic, harmonic and phraseological devices’ which evoke, within any timbre, the performance practise of the janissary band [31] .
Several examples from Thomas Bauman’s lexicon of such ‘devices’ can be found in Osmin’s Act I Aria. The opening of the Aria, a monophonic statement of the tonic in progressively longer note values, is a good example of the ‘long initial note values followed by quicker ones’ [32] and, although the Aria is not in Bauman’s 2/4 time [33], the minim motives in bars 12 to 14, for example, do suggest duple meter [Example 9]. The use of repeated notes in melody and accompaniment [34] can be seen with Osmin’s melodic motives at bars 126 to 133, and in the accompaniment at bars 116 to 120, and 125 to 134 [Example 10]. The fixation upon thirds [35] can be seen with their obvious appearance in the melody at bars 9 [Example 9] and 50, and with the third-related progressions such as bars 15 to 17 [Example 11], where there is descent from F major (chord I) to D minor (chord vi) to B-flat major (chord IV). The frequent appearance of G major chords [Example 11], including B natural, may be examples of Bauman’s Lydian-mode raised fourth [36]. Although acciaccaturas as such are not present, Osmin’s disjointed second subject motive, beginning at bar 84 [Example 12], could be suggestive of Hunter’s ‘before-the-beat ornaments’ [37]. Thus it is clear that Osmin is exoticised with alla Turca tropery.
This use of the Western transliteration of Turkish music has a number of associations, which bear on the gendering of the character Osmin. Although Hunter writes that ‘the usual connotations of the alla turca style are the pervasively “feminine”’, she also states that ‘the alla turca style in eighteenth-century opera is associated with extreme masculinity (bravado, fierceness, an obsessive interest in domination)’ [38]. Osmin certainly displays these base qualities, wanting to dominate not only his adversaries but also his loved ones, as shown by his Act I Duet in which he exhorts ‘lock your maiden tightly up’ [Example 13]. Thus the use of Turkish music emphasises the gendering that stands Osmin in binary opposition to the magnanimous Pascha. However, although the ‘low-Turk’ of the opera, Osmin is hardly the stereotypical ‘barbaric’ and ‘swashbuckling’ seraglio Muslim [39]; though demonstrating anger he primarily brings humour to the drama [40]. Therefore the ambivalence of the alla Turca topos reflects and creates the ambivalence of the character Osmin.
As Mozart wrote to his father, ‘Osmin’s anger is made comic by having Turkish music introduced there’ [41]: Mozart mocks Osmin with exoticism to show audiences that Osmin’s form of masculinity is immoral, that he personifies ‘unreason’ [42]. But what differentiates Osmin’s exoticism in Die Entführung aus dem Serail from that of Don José in Carmen is that Osmin does not become progressively exoticised as the opera unfolds; “Turkish” features such as ornaments, repeated notes, static harmony, third relationships and duple meter are present in his opening [Example 13] and closing [Example 14] songs of the opera, just as they are in his Act I Aria. This static level of “Turkish” pictorialism may reflect the fact that, despite contemporary ideals, ‘unreason’ was thought a universal human characteristic [43]. It also demonstrates that the baseness of Osmin’s character, just like the trope of the ‘immovable sameness’ of the Orient [44], is unalterably irredeemable. So while José’s exoticism is the result of contamination by the Other, it appears that Osmin suffers the intrinsic orientalism of his own Self.
But is this male Self a masculine Self? For Linda Phyllis Austern, the language of exoticism is also the language of femininity; thus when José and Osmin participate in Austern’s ‘aesthetically intriguing violation of Western High Art auditory norms’, they actually become feminised [45]. This seeming impossibility is legitimised by Charles Fonton’s association between ‘Oriental music’ and ‘effeminacy’: while the ‘strongest impressions’ made by European music are, he says, ‘manly sounds’, the opposing music of the Orient is ‘sweet and soothing’ and puts one ‘in the bosom of pleasure’ [46]. Austern contextualises this by describing how ‘all things public and perfect were manly’, because ‘Man came to embody Mind as Woman embodied Sensation’ [47]. In this way it is easy to see José’s distraction from military duty by the physical pleasures of love, and even Osmin’s unreasonable behaviour in the lack of such pleasures, as a feminising of these male characters. That male artists chose to villainise their male characters by assigning them the musical tropery of exoticism and orientalism therefore has as much to say about contemporary relations between Man and Woman as between Occident and Orient.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Austern, Linda Phyllis. ‘“Forreine Conceites and Wandring Devises”: The Exotic, The Erotic, and the Feminine’ in The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. 26-42.
Badura-Skoda, Eva. ‘Turca, alla’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed. Laura Macy. (Accessed [06/03/02]) <http://www.grovemusic.com>.
Bauman, Thomas. Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Cambridge Opera Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Bellman, Jonathan. ‘Introduction’ in The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. ix-xiii.
Bizet, Georges. Carmen. Vocal Score. New York: G. Schirmer, MCMLVIII.
Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. ‘Introduction’ in Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation and Appropriation in Music, ed. Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh. Berkley: University of California Press, 2000. 1-58.
Boyden, Matthew, ed. Opera: The Rough Guide. 2nd Ed. London: Penguin Books, 1999.
Brophy, Brigid. Mozart the Dramatist: The Value of his Operas to Him, to his Age, and to Us. Revised Edition. London: Faber & Faber, 1988.
Dahlhaus, Carl. Nineteenth-Century Music. Berkley: University of California Press, 1989.
Fonton, Charles. ‘Essay on Oriental Music Compared to the European’ (1751) in Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, ed. M. Murata. Rev. Ed. New York: Norton, 1998. 213-215.
Head, Matthew. Orientalism, Masquerade and Mozart’s Turkish Music. London: Royal Musical Association Monograph 9, 2000.
Hunter, Mary. ‘The Alla Turca Style in the Late Eighteenth Century: Race and Gender in the Symphony and the Seraglio’ in The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. 43-73.
Locke, Ralph P. ‘Constructing the Oriental “Other”’: Saint-Saens’s Samson and Delilah’, Cambridge Opera Journal 3/3 (1992). 261-302.
____________. ‘Orientalism’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed. Laura Macy. (Accessed [06/03/02]) <http://www.grovemusic.com>.
McClary, Susan. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
____________. Georges Bizet: Carmen, Cambridge Opera Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Die Entführung aus dem Serail. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1944.
Norman, Jessye. Bizet: Carmen. Orchestre National de France. Philips Classics Recordings: 1989.
Parakilas, James. ‘How Spain Got a Soul’ in The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. 137-193.
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
Example 1
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Don José’s Duet with Micaëla, Act I
Guitar-like motive
Example 2
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Don José’s Duet with Carmen, Act II
Guitar-like motive
Example 3
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Don José’s Duet with Micaëla, Act I
Castanet-like turn motives in accompaniment
Micaëla’s diatonic arpeggiation
Example 4
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Don José’s Duet with Escamillo, Act III
Rhythmic juxtaposition
Chromaticism in Don José’s part
Example 5
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Duet and Final Chorus, Act IV
Chromatic bass line for Don José’s part
Example 6
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Duet and Final Chorus, Act IV
Don José’s final melody and the colourful close of the opera in F-sharp major
Example 7
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Canzonetta, Act II
Chromaticism, trills and acciaccaturas in Don José’s part
Example 8
Georges Bizet, Carmen, Seguidilla and Duet, Act I
Don José’s monotone utterance, ‘Carmen’
Example 9
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Osmin’s Aria, Act I
Monophonic opening with progressively longer note values, minim motives, third motives
Example 10
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Osmin’s Aria, Act I
Repeated note motives
Example 11
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Osmin’s Aria, Act I
Third-related progressions and G major chords, including raised fourth scale degree
Example 12
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Osmin’s Aria, Act I
Osmin’s acciaccatura-like second subject motive
Example 13
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Osmin’s Duet, Act I
Turkish features: appoggiaturas, third relationships, duple meter
Example 14
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Osmin’s Aria, Act III Turkish features: static harmonies, repeated notes
NOTES
[1] Brigid Brophy, Mozart the Dramatist: The Value of his Operas to Him, to his Age and to Us, Revised Edition (London: Faber & Faber, 1988), p. 35.
[2] Mary Hunter, ‘The Alla Turca Style in the Late Eighteenth Century: Race and Gender in the Symphony and the Seraglio’ in The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998), p. 55.
[3] Susan McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, Cambridge Opera Handbook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 56, 58-9.
[4] Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), pp. 58-9.
[5] Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music (Berkley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 302-5.
[6] Jonathan Bellman, ‘Introduction’ in Bellman, ed., p.ix.
[7] ibid., p. xii.
[8] Ralph P. Locke, ‘Orientalism’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed. Laura Macy (Accessed [06/03/02]) http://www.grovemusic.com.
[9] Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh, ‘Introduction’ in Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation and Appropriation in Music, ed. Georgina Born & David Hesmondhalgh (Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), p. 4.
[10] Matthew Boyden, ed., Opera: The Rough Guide (2nd Ed.) (London: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 307.
[11] James Parakilas, ‘How Spain Got a Soul’ in Bellman, ed., pp. 160-163, 166.
[12] McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, pp. 51-2, 164-5.
[13] Parakilas, pp. 138, 163.
[14] McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, p. 53.
[15] Parakilas, p. 161.
[16] McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, p. 53.
[17] ibid., pp. 35-6, 42.
[18] McClary, Feminine Endings, p. 62.
[19] Ralph P. Locke, ‘Constructing the Oriental “Other”: Saint-Saens’s Samson and Delilah’, Cambridge Opera Journal 3/3 (1992), p. 277.
[20] McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, pp. 35-6.
[21] McClary, Feminine Endings, p. 63.
[22] ibid., p. 60.
[23] ibid., pp. 62-3.
[24] ibid., p. 59.
[25] McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, pp. 55-6.
[26] McClary, Feminine Endings, p. 59.
[27] ibid., p. 58.
[28] McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, pp. 36, 38-9.
[29] Boyden, p. 99.
[30] Eva Badura-Skoda, ‘Turca, alla’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, ed. Laura Macy (Accessed [06/03/02]) http://www.grovemusic.com.
[31] Hunter in Bellman, ed., pp. 44-6.
[32] Thomas Bauman, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 64.
[33] ibid., p. 64.
[34] ibid., p. 64.
[35] ibid., pp. 63-4.
[36] ibid., p. 64.
[37] Hunter in Bellman, ed., p. 46.
[38] ibid., pp. 55, 57.
[39] ibid., p. 58.
[40] Bauman, p. 67.
[41] ibid., p. 67.
[42] Matthew Head, Orientalism, Masquerade and Mozart’s Turkish Music (London: Royal Musical Association Monograph 9, 2000), p. 8.
[43] Head, pp. 8-9.
[44] Hunter in Bellman, ed., p. 71.
[45] Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘“Forreine Conceites and Wandring Devises”: The Exotic, The Erotic, and the Feminine’ in Bellman, ed., pp. 26-7.
[46] Charles Fonton, ‘Essay on Oriental Music Compared to the European’ (1751) in Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, ed., M. Murata (Rev. Ed.) (New York: Norton, 1998), p. 215.
[47] Austern, p. 35.