Re: MT VOID, 04/11/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 41, Whole Number 2375

Gary McGath  <garym@mcgath.com> wrote:

>
Soprano Kathleen Battle has been noteworthy as Pamina in _The Magic
Flute_. Because of a racial subplot, Pamina is supposed to be white, but
no one really cares. In opera, physical suitability for the role doesn't
matter. I've seen a singer who was well over 6 feet tall play a
half-dwarf in Wagner. Heavily built women singing the leading part in
_La Traviata_, a woman who's dying of tuberculosis, have become a
standing joke. I recently heard of a production of _Fidelio_ where
Leonore, who is a woman disguised as a man until the final scene, was
played by a woman who was eight months pregnant.

Opera is often very silly and is an abstract art form even by the standards
of the theatre where animals are frequently performed by humans in costume
and boys play womens' roles and vice-versa.

But... I could easily see Falstaff played by a women who was eight months
pregnant.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."