Lecture: “New Operas, New Women?”

Although almost all operas involve the dramatic representation of women and men, few musicologists or critics took gender into account before Catherine Clément’s L’opera ou la défaite des femmes (1979): a book that helped launch feminist music criticism. This talk will examine the ways the ensuing debates have affected the conventions for portraying gender in recent operas.

Free, reservation obligatory: events@demunt.be

MUNTPUNT (Munt 6, 1000 Brussel) – lecture in English

This lecture is linked to ‘To Be Sung’, a production of La Monnaie and a reflection day with composer Pascal Dusapin.

Susan McClary (Harvard PhD, 1976; Professor of Music at Case Western Reserve University) teaches courses in music history, music theory, and historical performance practices. Her research focuses on the cultural criticism of music, both the European canon and contemporary popular genres. In contrast with an aesthetic tradition that treats music as ineffable and transcendent, her work engages with the signifying dimensions of musical procedures and deals with this elusive medium as a set of social practices. She is best known for her book Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (1991), which examines cultural constructions of gender, sexuality, and the body in various musical repertories, ranging from early seventeenth-century opera to the songs of Madonna.

coproduction with De Munt/La Monnaie and Muntpunt