Vive Les Femmes!
On April 12th, 2025, I attended an opera performance in Tyler-Tallman Music Hall at Davidson College, entitled, Vive Les Femmes!. According to the program, the opera was composed of a selection of scenes “of feminine joy, strength, and adventure.” This included scenes from a wide variety of operas– The Magic Flute, Pirates of Penzance, Lakmé, Cosí fan tutte, Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus, and Naughty Marietta. The vignettes featured female performers, and were composed almost entirely of female characters (with the exception of the non-verbal prince from the Magic Flute scene and Orlofsky from Chacún á son gout (Die Fledermaus). The program boasts the performance as a “celebration of feminine excellence.” It does so both in the mechanics of the performance itself– the all-female cast, directing, and design team, as well as in the choice to perform songs presenting themes of female loyalty, friendship, togetherness, and creativity. The three women in the The Magic Flute scene fight over a fallen prince, however end up opting not to pursue him and leave the scene together. Next, a group of women “adventure” through the forest in Climbing over rocky mountain. They revel in their independence: “Here we live and reign alone/In a world that’s all our own/Here, in this our rocky den/Far away from mortal men.” In The Flower Duet from Lakme, Lakme and Mallika gather flowers together in a show of female friendship. In We’re the ladies of the chorus, a group of ladies danced a can-can at a party, invoking notions of female freedom, fun, and group solidarity. The director certainly succeeded in her goal to represent female excellence through depictions of the success and solidarity of women.
The act of borrowing and combining scenes from multiple operas to create a narrative centering on the celebration of women must have been a challenge, given the fact that opera has not historically been known for a positive portrayal of women. As we discussed in plenary on March 4th with Dr. Pyle, opera “has a woman problem.” In many traditional operas, the women who are featured as characters often end up dying by the end of the performance. Opera has also been known for its colonialist usage cases– in his chapter on “Colonial Society at the Theater,” David M. Powers states, “the musical theatre became a major force in French Antilles colonial society, supporting and strengthening the cultural political campaign. It helped to maintain the peace by providing elaborate musical entertainment designed to divert the attention of the non white population away from “unruly” thoughts such as equality and independence” (65). The opera has the capacity to be utilized as a tool to propagate narratives to an audience, a power it shares with the archive. This power becomes harmful when narratives reinscribe the weakness of minorities and stymie rebellion when those narratives promote the strength of colonial power. The art of opera becomes a method of social control for groups in power, granting them control over a narrative that further strengthens their power. Groups are likewise given the power to shape national narratives through historical archives, such as in the case of Puerto Rico’s barriadas, as explained by Dr. Jorell Melendez Badillo in his Lunch and Learn Lecture, the focus of my first Campus Commentary.
In Vive Les Femmes, scenes from operas were reclaimed to create a woman-centered narrative, reimagining opera through the lens of female excellence and empowerment. Though I am no expert on opera, I found the performance refreshing in how it forced the audience to take in classic scenes with women centered at the forefront. I am torn, though, over the choice to portray specific scenes apart from their original context. Not knowing much about the stories of the operas from which the scenes came makes me wonder who these female characters are, and how they are portrayed within their own stories. On the other hand, might it be significant that my first exposure to many of these operas be with women at the center? That may be a meaningful reframing for the audience to be acquainted with as they continue to consume other operas or experience the full-length versions of the operas from which these scenes were gleaned. All in all, it is important to acknowledge the ways through which performance may store and reify stereotypes, as well as the power within that reality for a performance to reframe those same narratives for an audience.
Bibliography
Melendez-Badillo, Jorell. “Lunch and Learn with Jorell Melendez-Badillo.” 4 October 2024, Davidson College.
Powers, David M. “Colonial Society at the Theater.” From Plantation to Paradise?, Michigan State University Press, 2014, pp. 65–84.
Pyle, Marcus. Social Justice and Opera. 4 March 2024, Hance Audítorium, Davidson College. Sesler Davis, Amanda. Vive Les Femmes!. Directed by Amanda Sesler Davis, Davidson College Opera Works, 12 April 2025, Tyler-Tallman Hall, Davidson College.
