La construction du genre : contraltos et castrats dans la production lyrique haendélienne

Abstract

Although modern operatic scholarship has spent considerable time studying the erotic power of nineteenth-century crossdressing, English baroque opera seems to have been slightly overlooked in that respect. As far as Handel’s production is concerned, one still reads here and there that male parts requiring an alto voice were indifferently given to both male and female singers, the subtext generally being that such roles were sung by a woman when no castrato was available. Would that mean that the contralto specialized in male parts was hardly more than a spare castrato? This paper aims at rehabilitating the female opera singer specialized in male parts (Jane Barbier, Francesca Bertolli, Caterina Galli, Antonia Merighi, Maria Caterina Negri, Diana Vico…), who already then was the victim of various condescending prejudices from certain male quarters (Charles Burney, Charles Jennens, Owen Swiney…). It ponders the issue of vocal and physical typologies for such parts, just as it examines the specificities of male roles specifically designed for women. It eventually considers the shift from opera to oratorio, with a view to assessing to what extent the change in genre also affected new perceptions of gender.

Keywords

• Handel
• opera
• oratorio
• castrato
• contralto
• genre