Description
Women in media -- written or performed -- often play into some form of gender role, be it to abide by or upset gender roles. When females do not play into these roles and instead act more like men, they are cast as wicked, evil, or tragic characters. The research presented here is a literary and musical analysis of three female characters in opera: the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute composed by Mozart, Lady Macbeth from Verdi?s Macbeth, and Tosca from Puccini's Tosca. I have brought these women together because they all seem to refute their assigned gender role in some way, which ends in their death. The literary analysis of the opera's librettos will discern, in one dimension, how these women are portrayed. The harmonic analysis I will be doing of these women?s arias will add another dimension of understanding to their characters. The aim of this research is to decide what these three characters have to say about the female gender in general, what happens when one chooses to not follow their gender roles, and also to put to question whether these characters deserve any empathy from the audience.
Wicked Women in Opera: A Study of Bad Women
Women in media -- written or performed -- often play into some form of gender role, be it to abide by or upset gender roles. When females do not play into these roles and instead act more like men, they are cast as wicked, evil, or tragic characters. The research presented here is a literary and musical analysis of three female characters in opera: the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute composed by Mozart, Lady Macbeth from Verdi?s Macbeth, and Tosca from Puccini's Tosca. I have brought these women together because they all seem to refute their assigned gender role in some way, which ends in their death. The literary analysis of the opera's librettos will discern, in one dimension, how these women are portrayed. The harmonic analysis I will be doing of these women?s arias will add another dimension of understanding to their characters. The aim of this research is to decide what these three characters have to say about the female gender in general, what happens when one chooses to not follow their gender roles, and also to put to question whether these characters deserve any empathy from the audience.