SINGING/SPEAKING GENDER:
VOCAL AMBIGUITY IN CASTRATI
AND ONNAGATA
Matjaž Matošec
Research Institute for History and Culture
Utrecht University
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Karl Kügle
Email: [email protected]
CENTRAL PREMISE

Human voice can be considered one of the main means of
distinguishing adult men from adult women and the most reliable one
in the absence of physical or visual contact between two or more
people.

When the speaker’s voice fails to meet culturally specific expectations
imposed on his/her body, particularly in pitch, the listener may be
puzzled and identify it with the opposite gender.
↓
Perceptions of the human voice
and of gender are interconnected.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theory of Gender Performativity
Judith Butler: Gender Trouble (1990)
WESTERN CONCEPTION OF SEX
Premodern one-sex model
Existence
Men

The unity of sex, gender, and sexuality is culturally constructed.

To be a given sex does not mean to be a given gender.

There are more than only two genders.

Gender is unstable.

Gender is performative, i.e., produced through a stylized repetition of
acts performed through our bodies.

Among such acts are bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various
kinds, including the way we speak.
OBJECTIVE
of only one (male) human body
and women seen as two versions of the same sex
Woman
seen as a lesser version of the single human body
A
gender hierarchy assuming a wide intermediate space between the
two extremes (man and woman)
Multiplicity
of genders
Modern binary model of sex and gender
Men and women seen as two distinct, biologically opposite forms of the
human species
Unity
of sex, gender and sexuality
THE OPERATIC CASTRATO AND KABUKI’S
ONNAGATA
Parallels
To explore the complex interplay between vocal timbre, pitch and
various constructions of gender from a comparative cross-cultural
perspective, using as a focal context the operatic castrato and kabuki’s
onnagata.
contemporaneous
performers
performing traditions originating in the 17th century
of protagonist roles in two popular forms of theatre
blurring
the gender boundaries both on and off stage
admired
as artists and desired as sexual partners by men and women
profoundly
affected by the introduction of the binary conception of sex
Differences
the
castrato’s gender ambiguity was caused by prepubescent castration;
that of the onnagata was the result of a highly stylized bodily and vocal
transformation.
In
the 19th century the operatic castrato became extinct while onnagata
stopped with the practise of living as onnagata in everyday life yet
continue to perform on the kabuki stage to the present day.
CARLO BROSCHI FARINELLI (1705–1782)
RECEPTION OF FARINELLI IN LONDON
Qualities attached to his voice
sweet,
harmonious, soft, thrilling, transporting, ravishing, possessing
magic charm, killing
able
to inspire the soul, charm the ear, take possession of the moved
listener’s soul and awaken it to the tenderest sentiments
unnatural,
unsentimented, emasculated
References to his gender ambiguity
semivir
(lat. half man), neither man or woman, epicene performer,
squeaking shadow of a man, amphibious animal, vocal unspecificate
angel,
idol Saint, heavenly Farinelli
syren,
comparison with Orpheus and Amphion
Portrait of Farinelli by Bartolommeo Nazari (1734)
GIOVANNI BATTISTA VELLUTI (1780–
1861)
RECEPTION OF VELLUTI IN LONDON
Qualities attached to his voice
pure,
sweet, brilliant, delicate
peculiar,
feeble, shrill, discordant, acrid, harsh, grating, distressing to
the ears, unnatural, ear-piercing, sickening, unequal, defective, howling,
croaking or screeching
automaton,
piece of machinery, steam-engine, the sound of a doorhinge creak and penny trumpet.
peacock
shriek, cricket squeak, parrot’s shrilly cry, screech-owl hooting,
sea-mew screaming, angry mastiff growl, croaking frog, husky rook,
squeaking rat, love-sick cat
sexless,
sounding like a death-like peal, the spectral moan of an
unearthly being, more like the yell of a savage than a human sound, as
possessing something awfully preter-human
YOSHIZAWA AYAME I (1673–1729)
Yoshizawa Ayame I, illustration from the book Amayo no Sambai Kigen (1693)
KEY PRIMARY SOURCES TO BE STUDIED

Actors’ Critiques (Yakusha Hyōbanki)

Complete book on actors (Yakusha Zensho, 1774)

Actors’ Analects (Yakusha Rongo)

The Great and First Actors’ Analects Through All Ages (Kokon
Yakusha Rongo Sakigake)

Neo-Confucianist writings on morality and manuals of behaviour
(e.g., Onna Daigaku attributed to Kaibara Ekken)

Kabuki actor woodblock prints
Erotic book “Takara Awase” illustrated by Utagawa Kunisada (1826)
KEY PRIMARY SOURCES TO BE
STUDIED
Meiji
etc.)
newspapers (Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun,
Meiji
and Taishō theatre magazines (Kabuki Shimpō, Kabuki,
Engei Gahō)
Writings
Kairyōkai)
by members of The Society for Theatre Reform (Engeki
Onnagata
art discussions (Onnagata no Geidan by Onoe Baikō VI,
Kabuki no Kata by Nakamura Utaemon V, and Danshū Hyakuwa by
Ichikawa Danjūrō IX)
Meiji
legal/criminal code
Meiji
writings on sex/gender
IWAI HANSHIRŌ VIII (1829–1882)