Negotiating the Trouser Role in Jules Massenet's and Henri Cain's Cendrillon (1899)

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  • March 19, 2019
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  • Crone, Catherine
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Music, Musicology Graduate Program
Abstract
  • The 1899 French opera Cendrillon, with libretto by Henri Cain and score by Jules Massenet, revolves around the relationship of Cendrillon (Cinderella) and Prince Charmant (Prince Charming), who are both played and sung by women. Since Prince Charmant is a trouser role, the audience sees a character in male costume but hears a female voice. Though Cendrillon and the prince end the opera united, the many obstacles and imbalances of their relationship throughout the plot work to undo the finality of this ending. I argue that the strange nature of this relationship results from attempts on the part of its creators to balance the tension between, on one hand, the requirement of the plot for a romantic ending between Cendrillon and Prince Charmant, and, on the other, the unusual and gender-subversive presence of the trouser role in the central romantic relationship, which allows two sopranos to live "happily ever after."
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Fauser, Annegret
  • Bonds, Mark Evan
  • Jennings, Lauren
Degree
  • Master of Arts
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2015
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  • Chapel Hill, NC
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  • There are no restrictions to this item.
Date uploaded
  • June 23, 2015

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