Travesti (theatre)
Travesti is a theatrical character in an opera, play, or ballet performed by a performer of the opposite sex.
For social reasons, female roles were played by boys or men in many early forms of theatre, and travesti roles continued to be used in several types of context even after actresses became accepted on the stage. The popular British theatrical form of the pantomime traditionally contains a role for a "principal boy", a breeches role played by a young woman, and also one or more pantomime dames, female comic roles played by men. Similarly, in the formerly popular genre of Victorian burlesque, there were usually one or more breeches roles.
Etymology
The word means "disguised" in French. Depending on sources, the term may be given as travesty,[1][2] travesti,[3][4] or en travesti. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English explains the origin of the latter term as "pseudo-French",[5] although French sources from the mid-19th century have used the term, e.g. Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l'opéra (1876), La revue des deux mondes (1868), and have continued the practice into the 21st century.[6]
Men in female roles
Until the late 17th century in England and the late 18th century in the
In theatre
As a
London's Shakespeare's Globe theatre, a modern reconstruction of the original Globe Theatre, continues the practice of casting men in female Shakespearean roles. Toby Cockerell played Katherine of France in the theatre's opening production of Henry V in 1997,[11] while Mark Rylance played Cleopatra in the 1999 production of Antony and Cleopatra.[12]
Travesti roles for men are still to be found in British pantomime, where there is at least one humorous (and usually older) female character traditionally played by a male actor, the pantomime dame.[13]
In opera
An exception to this practice was in 17th- and 18th-century French opera where it was traditional to use uncastrated male voices both for the hero and for malevolent female divinities and spirits. is also for an haute-contre.
Female roles in opera sung by men can still be found, although they are not common. The role of the witch in
In dance
The portrayal of women by male dancers was very common in Renaissance court ballet[18] and has continued into more modern times, although primarily restricted to comic or malevolent female characters. The use of male dancers for all the female roles in a ballet persisted well into the 18th century in the Papal States, when women dancers had long been taking these roles elsewhere in Italy. Abbé Jérôme Richard who travelled to Rome in 1762 wrote: "Female Dancers are not permitted on the stages in Rome. They substitute for them boys dressed as women and there is also a police ordinance that decreed they wear black bloomers."[19] Another French traveller that year, Joseph-Thomas, comte d'Espinchal, asked himself: "What impression can one have of ballet in which the prima ballerina is a young man in disguise with artificial feminine curves?"[19]
In the original production of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, a male dancer, Enrico Cecchetti, created the role of the evil fairy Carabosse, although the role has subsequently been danced by both men and women.[20]
In Frederick Ashton's 1948 choreography of Cinderella, Robert Helpmann and Ashton himself danced the roles of the two stepsisters. Ben Stevenson later continued the practice of casting male dancers as the stepsisters in his own choreography of the ballet.[21] Other female ballet characters traditionally performed by male dancers are Old Madge, the village sorceress in La Sylphide and the Widow Simone in La fille mal gardée.
Women in male roles
With the
Amongst the 19th-century actresses who made a mark in travesti roles were
In the
The practice of women performing en travesti in operas became increasingly common in the early 19th century as
From 1830 to 1850, female ballet dancers were increasingly seen in the
Gallery
-
-
Grigory Riabtzev (left) as Widow Simone inLa Fille Mal Gardée
-
Eliza Vestris as Felix in Isaac Nathan's comic opera The Alcaid or The Secrets of Office
-
Sarah Louisa Fairbrotheras Abdullah in Open Sesame
-
Mary Anne Keeley in one of her male roles
-
Joslyn Rechter as Cherubino inMozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro
-
Euan McIver as a pantomime dame
See also
- Cross-dressing in music and opera
- Cross-dressing in film and television
- Cross-gender acting
- Commedia dell'arte (a theatrical form where female roles were played by men from as early as the 1560s)
- Cross-dressing
- Drag show
- Köçek
- Onnagata (male actors who play female roles in Japanese kabuki theatre)
- boy players.
- Takarazuka Revue (a Japanese musical theatre troupe in which all roles are played by women)
- Womanless wedding
References
- ^ Budden 1992, p. 799.
- JSTOR 3207855.
- ^ Kennedy, Michael (2006), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, p 899
- ^ Warrack & West 1992, p. 716.
- past participleof the French verb travestir) as a noun.
- ^ See, for example Duron (2008) p. 231 and Coste (2004) pp. 26 and 141
- ^ ISBN 8888470247).
- ISBN 978-0-19-021582-8)
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 114–15.
- ^ Howe (1992) p. 25.
- ^ "Audience plays its part in Shakespeare's wooden O". The Independent, 7 June 1997
- ^ "Meet Mr Cleopatra". BBC News, 27 January 1999
- ^ See, e.g., "Panto's merriest widow". The Telegraph, 14 December 2005, accessed 7 February 2011
- ^ Senelick (2000) p. 177
- ^ Metropolitan Opera (2009). "Sweet and Low-Down"
- ^ "Three Sisters (1996–1997)" (work details) (in French and English). IRCAM.
- ^ Moiraghi, p. 324
- ^ Lee (2202) p. 54
- ^ a b quoted in Harris-Warrick (2005) p. 38
- ^ Brillarelli (1995) p. 31.
- ^ Upper (2004) p. 66
- ^ See Howe (1992)
- ^ Harbin, Marra, and Schanke (2005) p. 15
- ^ Gottlieb 2010, p. 142
- ^ Schwandt, Erich et al. "Burlesque", Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, accessed 3 February 2011 (subscription required)
- ^ Culme, John. Information "Nellie Farren (1848–1904) English burlesque actress" Archived 12 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine at Footlight Notes, 2003, accessed 8 February 2011
- ^ Taylor (2007) pp. 117 and passim
- ^ Garafola (1985) p. 35.
- ^ Foster (1998) p. 221
- ^ Anderson (1992) p. 257
Works cited
- Gottlieb, Robert (2010). Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. OCLC 813393485.
- Anderson, Jack (1992). Ballet & Modern Dance: A concise history, 2nd edition. Princeton Book Co. ISBN 0-87127-172-9
- Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l'opéra, Volume 2 (1876). Librairie des bibliophiles. (in French)
- Blackmer, Corinne E. and Smith, Patricia Juliana (eds) (1995), En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10269-0
- Brillarelli, Livia (1995). Cecchetti A Ballet Dynasty. Toronto: Dance Collection Danse Educational Publications.
- ISBN 0-333-73432-7.)
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Coste, Martine Agathe (2004). La folie sur scène: Paris 1900/1968 . Editions Publibook. ISBN 2-7483-0365-2(in French)
- Duron, Jean (ed.) (2008). Cadmus et Hermione (1673). Editions Mardaga. ISBN 2-87009-984-3(in French)
- Foster, Susan Leigh (1998). Choreography & Narrative: Ballet's staging of story and desire. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21216-2
- Gallo, Denise (2006). Trouser Roles in Opera, Study Guide: The Siege of Corinth, Baltimore Opera.
- Garafola, Lynn (1985), "The Travesty Dancer in Nineteenth-Century Ballet" in Dance Research Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 35–40. (Also reprinted in Ann Dils and Ann Cooper Albright (eds) Moving History / Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader, Wesleyan University Press, 2001, pp. 210–216. ISBN 978-0-8195-6413-9)
- Halliday, F. E. (1964). A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin
- Harbin, Billy J., Marra, Kim and Schanke, Robert A. (2005). The Gay & Lesbian Theatrical Legacy, University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-09858-6
- Harris-Warrick, Rebecca (2005). The grotesque dancer on the eighteenth-century stage: Gennaro Magri and his world. Univiversity of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20354-9
- Howe, Elizabeth (1992). The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660–1700, Cambridge University Press.
- ISBN 0-19-861459-4
- La revue des deux mondes, Volume 69 (1868). (in French)
- Lee, Carol (2002). Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-94257-8
- Moiraghi, Marco (2007), 'Dissoluto assolto, Il', in Dizionario dell'opera 2008, eds. Gelli, Piero and Poletti, Filippo. Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, pp. 324–325. ISBN 978-88-6073-184-5(in Italian)
- Senelick, Laurence (2000). The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15986-5
- Speake, Jennifer and LaFlaur, Mark, "en travesti" in The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English, Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Taylor, Millie (2007). British Pantomime Performance. Intellect Books. ISBN 1-84150-174-3
- Upper, Nancy (2004). Ballet Dancers in Career Transition. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1819-2
- ISBN 0-19-869164-5.