Who doesn’t know the picture of the fat woman in a Viking hat? This iconic image seems to have been around forever. This character emerged in the eighteen hundreds. Her name is Brünnehilde(sometimes spelt Brynhild or Brynhildr) from Richard Wagner's opera the Ring of the Nibelung. This character is inspired by a strong warrior princess in Norse mythology and so in order for the sound to be as powerful as this character, a bigger woman was employed because the heavier a person is, the stronger diaphragm muscles they have. Below is a picture of an older painting of what Brünnehilde is imagined to look like.
After the initial casting, quotes sprung up like, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.” And the image of a heavyset woman singing was planted into everybody’s mind in concerns to opera. The funny thing is that this is not the case anymore. Yes, there are still heavy women in this profession, but there are also women of average and extremely skinny sizes. Opera is very competitive, more so then ever before. With how caught up society is with everything being pleasing to the eye, performance companies are pressured to cast on looks instead of quality. In cases, like with the Metropolitan Opera, they cast strictly on skill.
No comments:
Post a Comment