Exotism in 19th and Early 20th Century Opera

Exoticism in 19th & 20th Century Opera

The Exoticism of Madame Butterfly, Carmen, & Aida

This paper will use three examples of 19th and 20th century opera to examine and interpret the term "exoticism." The paper will take time to clarify the relativity of the term exoticism and how it manifests in these three works. What is exoticism and how does it work? What is the function of exoticism in culture, in art, and in general? What does it reflect about a culture and what desires does exoticism express? The paper will attempt to ask and answer more questions utilizing Madame Butterfly, Carmen, and Aida as examples of the exotic at work in art.

We must first consider that exoticism is a relative term. When referring to three operas from the west, readers must take into account that what is exotic in the west is not what is universally exotic. Therefore the representations of the exotic in the three pieces are interpretations from a western perspective. In other parts of the world, the west and western culture is exotic and would be interpreted as such through that culture's perspective. More specifically, these operas reflect the concept of the exotic from the perspective of the western male. The composers of each play are male and each male is from a patriarchal society. This adds another layer through which we view the operas. These operas that concentrate on the exotic are from the perspective of western men. This is what we mean when stating that the word "exoticism" is a relative term. Exoticism is relative to the perspective from which it is interpreted and contextualized.

Though the narratives of each opera vary, what each work does share in common is the presence of an exotic woman as a leading character. Exoticism in 19th and 20th century opera displays itself in the form of a sexualized foreign female. Exoticism is an expression of the western male for the unknown and the unfamiliar. The desire for the unknown and for the exotic is sexualized via the leading (title) female roles. Thus for the western male of the 19th and 20th century, opera was a method by which they could access new culture through sexuality, but through women specifically:

"While reaffirming the paramount precedence of white heterosexual marriage, the film lingers lovingly over scenes of Butterfly's and Pinkerton's domesticity. We hear Puccini's joyful 'flower duet' music as we observe Butterfly's ideal feminine behaviour -- removing her husband's shoes, mixing his drink, preparing his pipe. The intended moral of the Madame Butterfly story has never been concerned with the behaviour of American men overseas. Rather, the real cultural work of this perennial narrative has been to provide an exotic fantasy for the American male and a model of feminine subservience for the American woman." (Sheppard, "Cinematic realism, reflexivity, and the American 'Madame Butterfly' narratives," Page 80)

Exoticism is expressed through the presence of exotic women, and through the materiality of the production itself. This would include expressing the exotic through costume design, make up and hair, set/production design, lighting design, as well as the instruments used in the orchestra and perhaps even the arrangement of the music itself.

The exoticism in opera as in other cultural forms expresses and reflects the politics of the time and of that culture in which the opera was written. For many cultures, the exotic is associated with the primitive and with savagery. This can make the (often) colonial culture in which the opera was composed feel superior and safe. This is the case for Verdi and Aida:

"…[Verdi was] driven by the ideological desire to 'stage' (p. 89) Egypt for European cultural consumption. His scenario constructs an Egypt that is a locus of satisfactorily grand European origins but, more important, an Egypt that has been orientalised - rendered exotic - so that it can find its appropriately subordinate place in Europe's imperial imagination. Said makes the ingenious speculation that the settings and costumes Mariette proposed for the opera were directly inspired by the idealised reconstructions of ancient Egypt contained in the anthropological volumes of Napoleon's Description de l'Egypte, perhaps the first great document to package Egypt for Europe's imperial consumption." (Robinson, "Is Aida an Orientalist Opera, Page 134)

The statement declares that the culture was hungry for the exotic, but in order to express the exotic without inducing anxiety in the European mind, the exotic was subordinated. The locale of the opera was modified to seem more akin to a European aesthetic, making the narrative somewhat familiar and safe. Verdi made the situation further exotic by modifying the exotic itself. The scenario is not exactly Egyptian, as a powerful African threatened the security of the European colonial framework. The aesthetic has hints of the Eastern and the Asian, a relatively more obedient and subservient culture.

This exoticism, though largely inaccurate, allowed European audience to access and experience the foreign without significant threat to their colonial perspective, position, and power. The goal of exotic representation in art or in opera specifically is not exclusively to convey realism. The goal of exoticism is to display what is foreign and threatening in the western mind in a safe, easily accessible, and somewhat familiar fashion:

"Throughout the entire history of Hollywood japonisme, however, this potential for enhancing musical exotic realism has rarely been realised.76 In fact, opportunities for including the Other and the Other's music were routinely turned down. Why did the creators of the 1932 Madame Butterfly not choose to include footage of actual dancing geishas? Why has Hollywood repeatedly turned to composers such as Harling and Waxman -- or to Puccini -- for 'Japanese music'? Perhaps these film-makers feared that the presence of the 'real' would prove too disruptive. Perhaps they intuited that actual Japanese traditional music and Japanese actors would undermine the representational style of exotic realism. In studying Hollywood Orientalism, it soon becomes apparent that the legendary 'authentic' exotic is not really wanted even if it can be had, despite the vociferous protestations by film-makers to the contrary. This is particularly true of music." (Sheppard, "Cinematic realism, reflexivity, and the American 'Madame Butterfly narratives," Page 93)

Sheppard argues for more authenticity in artistic representations of the foreign and the exotic. What is exotic is what is unfamiliar, and as consumers of art and of media, we value the authentic. Sheppard is asking and indirectly answering his question in regards to the lack of authenticity, or more specifically, the lack of the western, in expressions of exoticism. He asks why there is not more? Why does the west go to the west for what is exotic? Why not go to the source of the exoticism and utilize what has already been firmly established? Perhaps the artisans, such as composers and filmmakers (in Sheppard's case) believe audiences will not accept the purely exotic. Perhaps they believe that audiences will more heartily consume the watered-down exotic, the westernized exotic, or the exotic as interpretation and not as direct interaction. This practice is due in part to cultural fear/anxiety/xenophobia, and due part to the attitude of colonial superiority. For Sheppard, there is no guarantee that one artistic expression of exoticism will be more accurate than other. There is no "more authentic version" of examples of exoticism as seen through the eyes of the west:

"Madame Butterfly' may come to us straight from the heart of Japan'. This assumption of film's ability to bring realism to opera and of the allegedly more 'natural' dramatic pace of cinema has been common over the past century, from a 1919 article on the superiority of the screen over the stage for the presentation of opera to Jeongwon Joe's 1998 reference to the 'clash between cinematic realism and operatic theatricality.' However, filmed versions of the 'Madame Butterfly' tale reveal that cinematic exoticism proves no more realistic than does operatic representation of exotic others." (Sheppard, "Cinematic realism, reflexivity, and the American "Madame Butterfly' narratives," Page 61)

The exotic can serve to calm cultural fears and anxieties as well as convince the colonial culture that the foreign culture is safe and not a threat. Exoticism, in art, is sometimes used as a method of persuasion, manipulation, or cultural propaganda, such as the case of Madame Butterfly:

"How do film and opera differ in their methods of exotic representation and in their approach to manufacturing realism? And to what extent does the inherent reflexivity faced by new versions of the tale undermine attempts at realism? In addressing such questions, it is important first to consider what the ultimate aims of veristic exoticism might be. Attention to details of local colour is rarely -- if ever -- motivated solely by entertainment values. Rather, creating persuasive exoticism is more generally useful to the art of persuasion. For example, if a film can convince its audience of the authenticity of its depiction of the Japanese landscape and soundscape, then perhaps the audience is that much more likely to respond with credulity to its portrayal of Japanese women or to its position on the U.S. -- Japan political relationship." (Shepard, "Cinematic realism, reflexivity and the American 'Madame Butterfly' narratives," Page 60)

The exotic in western culture and in 19th and 20th century opera representations often refers to objects and people that are Asian and African:

"The word "exoticism" relates, etymologically, to places or settings "away from" some vantage point considered normative, most often that of the observer him- or herself. Like so many "-isms" (idealism, Romanticism), exoticism can be broadly encompassing and relatively abstract: an ideology, a diverse collection of attitudes and prejudices, an intellectual tendency. Or it can be broad yet concrete: a cultural trend with rich and varied manifestations. In literature and the visual arts, for example, exoticism is generally sought and found in a work's subject matter and in the evident attitudes and aesthetic aims of the work's creator -- but not necessarily in his or her style." (Locke, "A Broader View of Musical Exoticism, Page 479)

Carmen is somewhat foreign and somewhat familiar as Spanish culture is European, but is not automatically considered "white," though it is considered "colonial." (White, "19th Century and 20th Century French Exoticism") The use of the exotic additionally reflects the military activities and conquests of the time. European countries colonized parts of Asia and Africa during the 19th and 20th centuries. The operas composed at the time reflected cultures that Europeans were exposed to and that they subordinated:

"The earliest widespread adoption of Egyptian forms and motifs in architecture and the decorative arts begins following Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798 -- 1799. Napoleon's scientists, cartographers, engineers, and artists study and record tombs, temples, and other buildings, and the newly established Insitut d'Egypte examines all aspects of Egyptian civilization. These sources provide a wealth of information about Egypt, ancient and modern, and acquaint people with the land, about which little is known in the West…A new wave of Egyptian Revival begins in the 1870s, inspired by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida of 1871 with its colorful Egyptian-style sets, and the installation of Egyptian obelisks in London in 1878 and New York's Central Park in 1879. " (Harwood, May, & Sherman, "Exoticism," Page 213)

After or as part of their cultural subordination, these cultures were rendered exotic in art forms such as opera, prepared for mass, public consumption. (White, "19th Century and 20th Century French Exoticism")

The exotic as expressed in 19th and 20th century operas can additionally communicate aspects of the foreign culture that the colonial culture cannot or does not. Meaning the exotic can take the form of the characters, the set, and/or the music itself:

"…I wish to avoid any suggestion that Bizet has somehow flattened out the distinctive folk and regional -- non-French, nonoperatic -- stylistic features that he found in Spanish musical sources. As commentators have long agreed -- from Julien Tiersot and Edgar Istel to Susan McClary, Lesley Wright, James Parakilas, Steven Huebner, and Herve Lacombe -- certain numbers in this opera tell as foreign -- indeed, as exotic. And thus they also tell us something about the characters and situations we are seeing and how we, the audience, are to respond to what we are seeing and hearing acted out onstage in movement, gesture, word, and song." (Locke, "Spanish Local Color in Bizet's Carmen," Page 3)

Locke contends that Bizet communicates and expresses what is exotic in more than one manner. His style reflects and incorporates Spanish rhythms and the Spanish instrumental palette. The songs themselves are examples of the exotic, as well as the overall premise and title character themselves. Locke further states that the exotic for Bizet is expressed in the actor's blocking upon the stage. The movements, the gestures, the non-verbal communication of the characters serve to express what is exotic from the French perspective. The exotic operates on multiple levels that are both superficial and implicit in each respective opera.

Some members of the scholarly and artistic communities think that not enough attention has been paid to the exotic. Some of those same people also feel that the attention paid to the exotic in opera and in music is from a narrow-minded perspective. Examining the exotic from a larger contextual framework can offer new insights into the operas and into the cultures from which they come. Locke describes this state of thinking in the community and indirectly issues a challenge:

"The blinkered scholarly response to this thoroughly exoticist opera is typical more generally. Musical exoticism has long been defined in a narrow way: as the incorporation of foreign (or at least strange-sounding) style elements. The present article urges, instead, that musical exoticism be defined broadly, as the process by which exotic places and peoples are represented in musical works. It begins by looking at definitions of musical exoticism from several important scholars with different interests and backgrounds (Thomas Betzwieser, Jonathan Bellman, Jean-Pierre Bartoli), and then contrasting those with a definition of my own that is more comprehensive and more adequate to the wide range of exotic portrayals per musica." (Locke, "A Broader View of Musical Exoticism," Page 478)

While most scholars locate the exotic in the musical sounds and arrangements of music. Locke persists that exoticism permeates the entire work and should be viewed as such. He claims that there needs to be a broadening in the scope of thinking when we consider the exotic in opera and in music in general. How else does exotic manifest? How can we recognize it? Locke deems it important for scholars to be more flexible in their definitions and notations of exoticism in music: