Does it matter what opera singers look like?

[LeMartinPecheur]

It didn't work that way for me. I was a ballet lover well before I was an opera lover, and I think it caused problems rather than prevented them. In ballet, everyone looks right - that is, as expected. You don't have fat Swan Queens or dumpy Princes. It's totally unrealistic, of course. Everybody is beautiful, or gives the impression of being so. The first opera I saw was quite a shock, because I think I expected it to be much the same, only with singing instead of dancing.

I did once see a Swan Lake with a black Prince Siegfried, and after initial surprise it didn't concern me at all. He was suitably beautiful. (Things could get very complicated with similar casting for Odette and Odile, though.) Oddly, and rather to my shame, I'm still a bit bothered by a Japanese Sugar Plum Fairy or Aurora.

Actually Mary, as soon as I'd written that I knew I was on thin ice! On reflection, my 'mesmerisation' had little or nothing to do with emotional 'belief' in what I was watching - it remained a show out there in front of me. Wonderfully enjoyable, but not the same (for me) as opera.

I go to ballet really only because my daughter likes it - she's still doing ballet lessons aged 12 and has considerable ability. (Alas, she was never going to take it anywhere professionally because I'm 6'1", my wife is 5'7" and daughter is already up with her and still growing).

The last ballet we went to was Swan Lake, which certainly has a bigger emotional punch than Saturday's programme, but still to me remains almost totally a show in front of me, something to marvel at but not something I penetrate deeply as drama or tragedy. It's probably just me...

[mercia]

in terms of believing in the character we are watching, the size thing doesn't seem to matter the other way round. I mean, when Falstaff comes onstage so obviously padded up we don't immediately think, oh he's miscast, they should have cast a real fat old balding man ........ and why don't they cast a proper dwarf for Alberich instead of just a shortish man. And shouldn't we have a couple of teenagers for Romeo and Juliet ?

I expect there are some more absurd examples if I thought about it.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just caught an interview with Dame Kiri on Today - 7.40, just before the Papers - she is harsh about the critics but thinks the costume and wig are partly to blame and she would have thrown them on the ground and stamped on them if asked to wear them. Recostume her, put her in jodphurs and a pony tail is her advice [though perhaps not jodphurs for the bedroom scene...] She thinks Glyndebourne may have taken their eye off the ball as this has happened around the time of George Christie's death.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[though perhaps not jodphurs for the bedroom scene...]

... ooh, I don't know ...

[Nick Armstrong]

... ooh, I don't know ...

I've edited out of this post several off-colour jokes.

I'll content myself with a

[Sir Velo]

in terms of believing in the character we are watching, the size thing doesn't seem to matter the other way round. I mean, when Falstaff comes onstage so obviously padded up we don't immediately think, oh he's miscast, they should have cast a real fat old balding man

Problem is it's a bit difficult to get a corpulent singer to resemble a sylph - unless they carry around one of those trick slimming mirrors with them around the stage.

[jean]

I think the mistake was to dress her in a long frock coat, which the eye converts too easily into a woman's dress.

The picture the Guardian printed is the only one I've seen, in which she has her knees bent, so she looks even shorter. But she really isn't all that fat!

(I remember how Denis O'Neil used to have to stand on carefully-placed boxes or steps when he got too close to his leading lady!)

[Flosshilde]

A good actor can overcome any amount of physical inapropriateness. With Octavian however slim or 'boyish' the singer is we still have to be persuaded, or persuade ourselves, that what we are watching on stage is a young man & not a woman - it's the manner & manerisms that convince us. Did anyone complain that Janet Baker didn't look, or act, masculine enough to persuade us that she was Julius Caesar or Orfeo?

[Mary Chambers]

Did anyone complain that Janet Baker didn't look, or act, masculine enough to persuade us that she was Julius Caesar or Orfeo?

I thought of Janet Baker, too. I thought she was very convincing as Orfeo, which I saw on television, I think. Kathleen Ferrier looks fine in the photos I've seen, but she was tall and not overweight. Janet Baker also didn't look too curvy - I don't know how tall she is.

The convention that male characters should be taller than female characters is just that - a convention. We probably all know couples where it is not the case, but it is a powerful convention all the same. It's a problem in ballet, where being on pointe adds several inches to the ballerina's height, and many good male dancers aren't very tall.

I think actors and opera singers fare best if their own looks aren't too individual. Olivier was fairly nondescript to look at, but could give the impression of being handsome, plain or anything else required. His own looks didn't get in the way. Maggie Smith is the same. Ian Bostridge, though, being unusually tall and thin, always looks like Ian Bostridge, and to me Judi Dench always looks (and sounds) like Judi Dench.

[kea]

A good actor can overcome any amount of physical inapropriateness. With Octavian however slim or 'boyish' the singer is we still have to be persuaded, or persuade ourselves, that what we are watching on stage is a young man & not a woman - it's the manner & manerisms that convince us. Did anyone complain that Janet Baker didn't look, or act, masculine enough to persuade us that she was Julius Caesar or Orfeo?

That is a good point though—the right mannerisms, the right haircut and the right clothing can overcome most biological realities. Most of the transgender people I've known had been able (or would have been able, had they not been prevented by social prejudice) to live as the opposite gender before getting hormone therapy or any kind of surgery: height, weight, voice type and body shape being not nearly as important. Though I wonder if to a certain extent singers playing an opposite-gender role have to try not to be too convincing due to the aforementioned social prejudice (not wanting to creep out or disturb the typically "cisnormative" classical music audience?)

[Lento]

Richard Morrison responds to criticism in social media of his comments regarding a singer: for those who have access to the Times, here it is:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/classical/article4096339.ece

[Old Grumpy]

My main concern is that if there are no fat ladies in operas they will never end.

[amateur51]

Interestingly colour (which also might be thought to require some suspension of disbelief) is not an issue for anybody - opera has been colourblind, more or less, since Marian Anderson.

I'm not certain that Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry and Jessye Norman would agree with you completely.

[amateur51]

No, Sir V, it is more to do with intake than metabolism. 1 x 330 ml can of Coke = 139 Calories = 22 minutes aerobics or 30 minutes walking according to their own website

But many people buy it in 3 litre bottles, and consume them!

"Low fat" (supposedly healthy) yoghurts are packed with sugar etc etc etc.

We shouldn't forget the sugar content of 'natural' fruit juices too which are promoted as being healthy. One glass /day is certainly healthy but not a litre carton.

[amateur51]

It didn't work that way for me. I was a ballet lover well before I was an opera lover, and I think it caused problems rather than prevented them. In ballet, everyone looks right - that is, as expected. You don't have fat Swan Queens or dumpy Princes. It's totally unrealistic, of course. Everybody is beautiful, or gives the impression of being so. The first opera I saw was quite a shock, because I think I expected it to be much the same, only with singing instead of dancing.

I did once see a Swan Lake with a black Prince Siegfried, and after initial surprise it didn't concern me at all. He was suitably beautiful. (Things could get very complicated with similar casting for Odette and Odile, though.) Oddly, and rather to my shame, I'm still a bit bothered by a Japanese Sugar Plum Fairy or Aurora.

Matthew Bourne's company Adventures in Motion Pictures gave us all-male swans and cygnets and very wonderful they were too in the context of his production.

Just goes to show ...