I am excited to present another guest post by one of the brightest, most curious, and hard-working singers I know. Soprano Sophia Masullo.  Enjoy!

“It Ain’t Over till the Fat Lady Sings”: The Development of Operatic Stereotypes in Modern Culture

Everyone knows opera: excessive hours of serious or superfluous singing – often repeating the same foreign words over and over – and rotund sopranos and tenors exaggerating their emotions, ending with either going mad or death. Opera is, of course, out of touch, and those who enjoy it are gatekeeping snobs who lament the unpopularity of the art form while doing nothing to revitalize it. Despite the unfamiliarity of most people with the content or context of opera, they are nonetheless more than familiar with its place in the modern zeitgeist. Indeed, opera might be the art form with which people are most tangentially familiar while never actively engaging with it, and operatic stereotypes have permeated the media for a century. How did these generalizations originate and develop? Are they accurate? And, most importantly, are they harmful or beneficial to the artform today?

The main culprit for the modern perception of opera is Richard Wagner.
Think of an opera singer and you’re almost bound to imagine a formidable soprano in body armor and a Viking helmet holding a shield and a spear, à la Brünnhilde from Wagner’s Ring cycle.

It is hard to overstate Wagner’s impact on American operatic culture. Reverence for Wagner reached almost cult-like proportions at the turn of the 20th century. A “perfect storm” of new cultural and musical ideologies primed the US for its Wagner craze. The dominance of Germany in Europe, after Otto von Bismark had unified the German states and demonstrated their power on the continent in the Franco-Prussian War, inspired a desire in America to adopt aspects of German culture like music. German émigré conductors, musicians, and choral societies were able to establish permanent and touring orchestras and choirs. Post-Civil War America also saw a drive for more public entertainment; new opera houses were built in cultural centers like New York and Chicago which could accommodate thousands of people at relatively inexpensive prices.

This democratization of music was part of a larger shift from music’s domain as a primarily middle-class women’s art to be performed in the home, towards a more public, masculine-oriented one. Wagner was closely tied with this masculine, democratized view of music; his many treatises were read in America as demonstrating masculine willpower, and he was portrayed as a man of the people who practiced “American” ideas of social equality, a claim justified by Wagner’s desire to offer free seating at his theater in Bayreuth. The common myth which arose, that as a poor young man Wagner had pulled himself up by his bootstraps with his natural talent and intellect, resonated in the US. By the 1890’s, Wagner was marketed as American, and many critics thought New York would replace Bayreuth as the cradle of Wagnerian, and by extent German, music. In fact, Wagner’s 1878 essay for the North American Review declared that the US, as a “young Teutonic” nation, provided a new and freer home for German music.

And indeed, Wagner took the American music scene by storm. Lohengrin had its American premiere in 1871, and the first complete Ring in 1899. The 1903 New York premiere of Parsifal drew huge crowds of diverse ethnicities and social classes who were barraged by many pamphlets explaining the opera and detailing the leitmotifs. Between 1884 and 1891, the Met only produced operas in German, with Wagner predominating. Critic Henry T. Finck wrote that New York wanted “Wagner, the whole of Wagner, and nothing but Wagner.”

This elevation of Wagner and German opera sidelined Italian opera, which had the connotation of being more vocally virtuosic, attributable to the early 19th century bel canto style which prioritized showing off the voice above all else, and dealing with more trivial, mundane themes than German opera. This also led Italian opera to be deemed feminine in contrast to German opera’s masculinity. Finck complained that “the Italians are too lazy to say Hamlet or Siegfried, but emasculate these words into Amleto and Siffredo! Siffredo for the heroic Siegfried! Fie! What maudlin effeminacy! With such an indolent vocal method, we can never have a true drama.” Critic William Sloane Kennedy praised Wagner for abandoning Italian operatic norms like long cadential extensions. Though Italian opera would soon return to American life, with Puccini’s La fanciulladel West receiving its world premiere at the Met in 1910, its cultural weight was nonetheless severely hindered by the cult of Wagner.

The common stereotype of opera as long and serious comes from this Wagnerian and Germanic tradition emphasizing sublime, mythic works which last for hours – most of Wagner’s works are based off Nordic and Teutonic mythology, and some, like Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, can stretch to six hours. The idea of the “fat singer” is also attributable to Wagner – Wagnerian singers need larger voices and more breath capacity than most Italianate singers, since Wagner treated the voice like an orchestral instrument instead of having the orchestra “back off.” In order to sing over an orchestra, Wagnerian singers tend to have larger lung capacities and generally larger bodies to house their instruments. Conversely, when opera is stereotyped as frivolous, nonsensical, and vocally excessive, its characters as emotionally capricious or exaggerated, and its ending as tragic and overdone, it is almost always in reference to the few Italian operas which have survived the German invasion, like those of Puccini and Verdi, and Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. The latter, and indeed the tradition of opera buffa to which it belongs, deals with stories of common people rather than mythic figures, as they sort out humorous but relatively normal problems (in the grand scheme of things, trying to get your boss to stop pursuing your fiancée, as in Le Nozze di Figaro, is more normal than trying to prevent the downfall of the gods, as in Götterdämmerung). Opere buffe plots also tend to follow multiple characters’ goals, making them fast-paced, hard to follow, and occasionally genuinely incoherent. Capricious personalities like Norina (Don Pasquale), Tosca (Tosca), and Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) are no strangers in Italian opera, and neither are intensely tragic endings characterized by powerful vocal performances and death, as in Rigoletto, Tosca, La bohème, La traviata, and many more. Essentially, if opera is depicted as long, serious, or mythical: Wagner. If there’s nonsense plots or too much singing: Rossini, Donizetti. Overly emotional characters or a devastating ending, see: Puccini or Verdi.

Now that we’ve explored the origin of these stereotypes, it’s time to ask what weight they’ve held in popular culture, and whether these depictions are ultimately good or bad for opera as an art form. In the early 20th century, opera was the popular art form. Tenor Enrico Caruso became the first recording artist to sell 1 million discs, of his recording of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacciaria “Vesti la giubba.” Throughout the middle of the century, opera singers like Maria Callas were treated like celebrities by the public. Also around this time, cartoons used opera music and subject matter for comedic effect, which introduced millions of people who would otherwise have nothing to do with opera to the art form. How many people know the overture of Il barbieredi Siviglia from 1950’s The Rabbit of Seville, or recognize the “Walkürenritt” as the “kill the wabbits” melody from 1957’s What’s Opera, Doc? Cartoons, especially What’s Opera, Doc?, satisfied and reinforced common notions of what opera was. For most people in the ‘50’s, Wagner represented opera both musically and stylistically, and What’s Opera, Doc? fit this representation by using melodies from six Wagner operas. Elmer Fudd wears a magic Viking helmet (akin to the Tarnhelm in Wagner’s universe) and body armor, and Bugs dresses in drag as “Bwunhilda.” When Bugs “dies” at the end, he turns to the audience and asks “Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?” playing off opera’s penchant for tragedy. In another cartoon, 1945’s Herr Meets Hare, Bugs seduces Nazi official Hermann Göring while wearing blonde braids and a Viking helmet. Carl Stalling, who wrote and arranged scores for Warner Bros., used Wagner’s music in 120 cartoons. Cartoon characters often abruptly sing opera in a foreign language, with no explanation given, for comedic effect, as in Warner Bros. 1955’s One Froggy Evening where Michigan J. Frog sings “Largo al factotum.” Though Wagner was predominant in cartoons, films mainly used bel canto arias for their singable, memorable melodies. Films and cartoons alike created a rapport between the characters, who satirized opera, and the audience, who could laugh along as high culture was juxtaposed with low in an attempt to stand against the perceived snobbish pretentions of the former, as in the Marx Brothers’ 1935 film A Night at the Opera. These depictions simultaneously reinforced opera’s perception as an out-of-touch artform and made it more accessible to more people.

This paradox is also displayed in comedy, especially the routines of pianist and comedian Victor Borge. In his “Mozart opera” routine, he describes a stereotypical Mozart work: beginning with “a 45-minute intermission,” the curtain opens with two trees on either side of the stage. The tenor comes in, and “he is supposed to meet his soprano.” However, she is late so he hides behind a tree to surprise her. The prima donna, who“is supposed to fill the part of the soprano” and “not only fills it, but overflows it a little,” enters, can’t find her tenor, and hides behind the other tree. Borge remarks how “now they are standing behind either tree for about 27 minutes and nothing happens.” Next the chorus comes in “and nobody knows why.” After, “the baritone comes in and sings [Borge sings and plays the “Toreador” aria from Carmen] but he finds out he’s in the wrong opera.” Finally, the soprano’s father comes in, “il basso,” and decides that she must die. As Borge puts it, “she is a very obedient daughter and so she dies, and that is the end of the opera.” He then plays the “famous death aria” on the piano, which has a fast, upbeat tempo in a major key, satirizing the incongruence which often occurs between operatic music and subject matter. Borge pokes fun at the length, absurdity, and incoherence of opera while providing his audience more context and information about Mozart operas – in Idomeneo a father must sacrifice his child, in Don Giovanni a soprano hides behind trees, and in Die Zauberflöte the chorus comes in seemingly without reason.

In another routine, with soprano Marilyn Mulvey, he repeatedly tells her to get her hands off the pianowhile she is singing, says “Oh God” when Mulvey says she wants to sing “Caro nome” (a virtuosic Verdi aria), and, after she announces that Giuseppe Verdi was the composer, turns to the audience and says “that’s ‘Joe Green’ to you,” satirizing opera’s standing as a high-class European art form. He acts surprised whenever she hits a high note and says “oh shush” when she sings a sustained note. When she repeats texts he asks “but you just said that?” Borge makes fun of opera singers’ desire to show off, and the seemingly meaningless repetition of text. He demonstrated knowledge of opera and used it to make fun of the art form, with the (un?)intended consequence of informing audiences of operatic norms.

Opera had another “boom” from the 1970’s through the ‘90’s as new recording technologies brought it into the homes of millions for relatively cheap. Many opera-movies were filmedfor home consumption and TV, and opera music was used in marketing to give products an association as high-class and expensive. A highly successful 1979 Fiat Strada commercial played “Largo al factotum” to emphasize the car’s Italianate style and distinction. Stars like Andrea Bocelli and Luciano Pavarotti frequently gave large-scale, sold-out concerts. By 1990, opera stars were fashioned into saleable commodities. Pavarotti’s recording of “Nessun dorma” became the theme song for the 1990 World Cup, and stayed at #2 on the British popular singles chart for five weeks. People treated opera stars like celebrities, and new publications and magazines like Opera andOpera Now provided both scholarly analysis and tabloid-like gossip about the opera world. Operatic subject matter, in addition to opera music, was used in popular TV shows and movies. The Seinfeld episode “The Opera” features “crazy” Joe Divola who stalks Elaine and equates himself with Canio, the clown in Pagliacci consumed with jealousy. He frequently listens to “Vesti la giubba,” Canio’s most emotional aria, and dresses up like a clown to go to the opera which Seinfeld & co. attend. Here, the opera is invoked to emphasize the “madness” of crazy Joe, as opera frequently portrays people going mad (Lucia di Lammermoor, I Puritani, Macbeth). The “Sull’aria” from Le Nozze di Figaro is used in the Shawshank Redemptionto symbolize beauty and hope. The “Walkürenritt” is used in Apocalypse Now to satirize the “heroism” of the Vietnam War. Opera stereotypes are continually used in media to push agendas and add a layer of meaning.

These stereotypes, while not accurate, do have a bearing in reality. Many operas do end tragically, or go on for too long, or involve temperamental characters or nonsensical plots. However, the genre is too diverse to be fully described by this set of ideas which appears in popular culture, and using only this framework to understand opera is limiting. This is not to say that thoughtful satire, such as that of Victor Borge, is always bad. Rather, jokes which demonstrate an understanding of the art form are constructive as they provide context and knowledge in addition to the ability to make fun. Opera will continue to pervade popular culture, and these references are often many people’s first exposure to the art. If people grow interested in opera through cartoons or movies or comedy, despite the generalizations in the portrayal, it is a net positive. In terms of opera, all press is good press; to stay relevant, it must maintain its presence in modern culture.

Sophia Masullo

Further Reading:

Burton W. Peretti. “Democratic Leitmotivs in the American Reception of Wagner.” 19th-Century Music 13, no. 1 (1989): 28–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/746209.

Daniel Goldmark. “What’s Opera, Doc? and Cartoon Opera.” In Tunes for ‘Toons, 1st ed., 132–159. University of California Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1525/j.ctt1pp3w1.11.

Paul Fryer. “The Business of Opera: Opera, Advertising, and the Return to Popular Culture.” In Opera in the Media Age: Essays on Art, Technology and Popular Culture, edited by Paul Fryer, 7-31. McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, 2014.