Queer and Gender-Fluid Artists in the Music Performance Universe of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries

Brian Lyons

About this exposition

In classical music there has been an effort in recent years to bring to light those whose artistic output contributed to their genre or era but were not as well-memorialized as their caucasian heteronormative male counterparts. So, what about artist-musicians, and those adjacent to them, who lived outside the gender constructs of their contemporary hegemony? What contributions did they purposefully or inadvertently make? What is their reception history and how were these histories documented? Queer Studies in- and outside of musicology has made strides to recognize the existence of historic queer and gender nonconforming individuals. Generally speaking, the aim has been to legitimize the gender spectrum and to make the lives of these noteworthy individuals known. Still it’s impossible for us to know how these gender non-conformists would have categorized their own gender in the Early Modern and Modern Periods were they to have the same terminology as we have today. In this thesis I will cite figures from plays and broadsheet ballads of the 17th century, the developing opera genre in France in the early 18th century, the “low style” in London society and theater in the early 19th century, through to the Reconstructionist United States. By illuminating queer and gender nonconforming individuals and the performative acts that defined their personal lives, I show that these communities have always existed in some iteration and in many facets of the musical universe. What emerges is a centuries-old artistic lineage between gender non-conforming people that has yet to be fully explored.

type	research exposition
keywords	en travesti, queer, gender, opera, musical theater, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century
date	23/02/2024
published	21/05/2024
last modified	21/05/2024
status	published
share status	private
copyright	Brian Lyons
license	CC BY-NC-ND
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2591782/2629315
published in	KC Research Portal
portal issue	1. Master Research Projects

id	name	copyright	license
2596869	Bibliography	Brian	All rights reserved
2596871	0004	Brian	All rights reserved
2596872	0003	Brian	All rights reserved
2596873	0007	Brian	All rights reserved
2596874	0005	Brian	All rights reserved
2596875	0006	Brian	All rights reserved
2596876	0002	Brian	All rights reserved
2596877	0001	Brian	All rights reserved
2598384	Julie d'Aubigny research	Brian	CC BY-NC-ND
2598415	Julie d'Aubigny research	Brian	All rights reserved
2612279	cutpurse	https://mjblackauthor.wordpress.com/	All rights reserved
2612295	Mademoiselle Maupain dansant a l opera	https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/julie-daubigny-la-maupin-and-early-french-opera	All rights reserved
2612306	Chevalier-dEon	https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw217942/Chevalier-dEon	All rights reserved
2612329	Madame Vestris as Dn Givani	https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp03017/madame-vestris-lucia-elizabeth-vestris-nee-bartolozzi-later-mathews	All rights reserved
2612337	Madame Vestris as Dn Givan	https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-ed4c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99	All rights reserved
2612347	eugene d amei	http://operetta-research-center.org/blackface-crossdressing-great-minstrel-prima-donne/	All rights reserved
2612385	woodcutone	https://earlymodernscribbling.com/2021/05/02/maids-sausages-and-cross-dressing-gender-in-crime-ballads/	All rights reserved
2616772	woodcutone	n	All rights reserved
2617001	Chevalier-dEon	n	All rights reserved
2800114	uciaucas	Lucia Lucas	All rights reserved
2800183	Teiya	Teiya Kasahara	All rights reserved
2800428	Hden	Holden Madagame	All rights reserved

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Queer and Gender-Fluid Artists in the Music Performance Universe of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries (2024)

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