NONORMOPERA SIGNED

Project "NONORMOPERA" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

 Partnership

Take a look of project's partnership.

Map

 Project objective

In the late 1970s, North-American musicology inaugurated the exploration of the ways in which gender and sexuality affect musical expression. Since the development of queer theory in the early 1990s, a new orientation has manifested in musicological research. Musicology that integrates queer theory – most briefly defined as ‘Queer musicology’ – considers music the site for the confrontation between heteronormative dominant culture and the composer’s non-normative gender identity, who questions social prejudices on grounds of sexual and gender diversity through his art. Research in this recent trend is very productive in North-America, but it has developed less in Europe. Despite the flourishing of this field in small-scale studies across many genres, there are yet few book-length studies of coherent repertoire.

The project is unique in queer musicology in its focus on opera. By comparatively investigating eight operas premiered between 1945 and 2000 by gay composers of various ages, nationalities, educational backgrounds and musical styles, it will shed light on the expressive strategies employed by authors to represent sexual and gender non-normativity. The overall objective will be reached through the developing of three specific objectives: I) to relate the representation of sexual and gender non-normativity to the self-perception of his non-normative identity by the author, on the one hand, and to the perception of sexual and gender non-normativity by the socio-historical context where the opera was composed on the other; II) to identify the aspects of the libretto that refer to sexual and gender non-normativity; III) to identify the musical elements that contribute to the expression of sexual and gender non-normativity.

Through the inquiry into how gay composers use operatic genre to explore non-normative genders and sexualities, the project will highlight how music can relate experiences of marginalisation and challenge discriminatory prejudices.