Monteverdi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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En travesti (literally "in disguise") is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in a play, opera or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English classifies the term as "pseudo-French". The phrase itself is not recorded in French, and derives from the misinterpretation of travesti (the past participle of the French verb travestir) as a noun.
Men in female roles
[[File:Farinelli female caricature edited.jpg|thumb|150 px|left|The famous castrato Farinelli caricatured in one of his female roles]] Until the late 17th century, women were conventionally portrayed by male actors (usually adolescents) in drag because the presence of actual women on stage was considered immoral. As a boy player, Alexander Cooke, is thought to have created many of Shakespeare's principal female roles, as well as Agrippina in Ben Jonson's Sejanus His Fall. Castrati, adult males with a female singing voice (usually produced by castration before puberty), appeared in the earliest operas – initially in female roles. In the first performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo in 1607 the roles of Eurydice and Proserpina were both sung by castrati. However, by 1680 the castrati had become the predominant singers for leading male roles as well. The portrayal of women by male dancers was very common in Renaissance court ballet and has continued into more modern times. The role of the evil fairy Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty was created by Enrico Cecchetti. 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
[[File:Bernhardt Hamlet2.jpg|thumb|150 px|right|Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet]] With the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 women started appearing on the English stage, both in the female roles that in Shakespeare's day had been portrayed by men and boys, and in male roles. It has been estimated that of the 375 plays produced in London between 1660 and 1700, nearly a quarter contained one or more roles for actresses dressed as men. Amongst the 19th century actresses who made a mark in en travesti roles were Mary Anne Keeley who portrayed Smike in the stage adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby and the robber Jack Sheppard in Buckstone's play based on his life; Maude Adams who played Peter Pan in the American premiere of Barrie's play and went on to play the role over 1500 times; and Sarah Bernhardt who created the role of Napoleon II of France in Edmond Rostand's L'Aiglon as well as playing Lorenzino de' Medici in Musset's Lorenzaccio, Pelléas in Maeterlinck's Pelléas and Mélisande and perhaps most famously the title role in Hamlet. The practice of women performing en travesti in operas became increasingly common in the early 19th century as castrato singers went out of fashion and were replaced by mezzo-sopranos or contraltos in the heroic masculine roles. See for example, the title role of Rossini's 1813 Tancredi which was specifically written for a female singer. However, mezzo-sopranos en travesti had been used earlier by both Handel and Mozart, sometimes because a castrato was not available, or to portray a boy or very young man, e.g. Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. From 1830 to 1850, female ballet dancers were increasingly seen in the corps de ballet portraying toreadors, hussars, and cavaliers, and even as the prima ballerina's "leading man", a practice which was to last into the early 20th century.
See also
- Breeches role
- Pantomime
- Dame
- Cross-dressing
- Principal boy
- Onnagata
- Commedia dell'arte
- Burlesque (genre)
