My original idea was to just leave this post blank, but then I thought that maybe people would think their browsers were messing up and I would get tons of messages saying that my blog was broken, and then I would have to explain my annoying concept, and it would not be funny or clever if I had to explain it, and so I realized that I had to go ahead a write a post anyway. But just to be clear, when it comes to great female opera composers, there aren’t any.
Now look, I agree that it may be possible that there are in fact great undiscovered female opera composers out there. In fact, I hope that this is the case. I’m just saying that if they do exist, we are not putting on their shows. I’ll show you what I mean.
According to Operabase.com, the most performed composers of opera, are:
Verdi (a male)
Mozart (a dude)
Puccini (a guy)
Wagner (a man)
Rossini (a bro)
Donizetti (a gentleman)
Strauss (a non-lady)
Bizet (a grown-up boy)
Handel (a person with a Y chromosome)
Offenbach (stands up to pee)
And that’s just the top 10! If you look at the top one hundred, you will find more of the same. Not a single female composer on the list. Why? I mean, historically women were locked in kitchens and made to have babies, so that may explain why there were fewer of them writing operas back in the day, but we certainly have some female composers. Right? And women were painting and writing poetry and novels, so why not opera? Even today, the trend continues. Who is writing all the big operas in the 21st century so far? Menfolk. Adams, Glass, Bolcom, Musto, and a bunch of other male dudes.
Don’t get me wrong, the guys are doing all right in the composing department. It’s not that I want to hear less from them. I’m just saying there seems to be a void here. When I was in school we did new works by compositions students, and they were all guys too. Women of the world, I challenge you to write an opera. Write lots of them! Honestly, even if you are not that good at composing, and your pieces are only moderately successful, you will still be the best, most successful female opera composer out there! And if there are some great operas out there by female composers that google did not tell me about, let me know. I’d love to do a follow up post about it. But until then, I have to go practice my music written by some dead white guys.
http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=301 are the examples of famous operas by an XX composer that I know of, but that is all.
Awesome! I know Libby Larsen of course, but I didn’t know she was writing operas. Have you heard any of them?
I have actually performed a few scenes from them for a Women Composer’s Forum. I actually really liked Dreaming Blue, which I didn’t get to perform.
I really wish Barbara Strozzi would have written operas. 🙂 Her music is breathtaking; I can’t imagine how amazing a whole opera’s worth of it would be.
Exhibit A:
miei pensieri: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NmD4zNosU&feature=related
la vendetta: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKi4ckxEUSM
Che si puo fare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDBPfhG-gVk
Not so many. I did find Der Wald, by Dame Ethyl Smyth. According to Wiki, it’s still the only opera composed by a woman to be produced at the MET. There’s also Judith Weir, who is still alive and composing today. As for other women opera composers I know about, Lori Laitman and Carol Sams come to mind. (And Libby Larsen, but she’s mentioned above.)I’m particularly interested in this subject, because I’m composing my first opera right now. And yeah, I’m a girl.
I am a female opera composer. My name is Carol Sams, I have written 14 operas, all of them either performed or with a company to perform them shortly. I love writing operas above everything else. But, opera is so expensive, and it is still true that we have just gone through a tremendous change in the music biz, and are still going through it, and a tremendous change in the economy which makes writing something a little iffy… companies lose the wherewithal to take chances and then they do the great old operas. Which are really and truly great, don’t take me wrong. But, also not to my advantage, I like funny operas, comic operas, and that is a harder sell than some political, romantic or tragic operas, all of which are very popular right now (as usual.)
But I thought I would weigh in on this. Opera is the best fun ever! to write, to put on, to practice, to present, absolutely the best, like no other art form; and truly close to impossible as it gets. People singing, and you still believe the drama? Well…
I feel lucky to have had all the performances I have had. It’s been such a rush! and it’s not over yet. Come and see my newest “Four Blondes in a Cave”!!! Ha ha ha (evil laughter)