Drama Queens: Opera, Gender and the Poetics of Excess

(4 Credits)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a drama queen is “a person who is prone to exaggeratedly dramatic behavior.” While drama queens exist in real life, opera is their ideal environment. Echoing back to their tragic fates, the powerful voices of opera’s heroines never ceased to affect their empathetic public. In fact, excess and overreactions are key to the operatic experience both on stage and in the audience. By focusing on the ways in which drama queens are brought to life, the course explores the social, political, and gender dynamics that inform the melodramatic imagination. Along with a broad introduction to the development of opera from 1600 to 1900, the course offers a theoretical background across literature and musical culture, reception, voice/sound and gender studies. Case studies include works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccin. No musical skills required.