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• O N E • When Is a Lesbian Narrative a Lesbian Narrative? Precisely because it is motivated by a yearning for that which is , in a cultural sense, implausible—the subver sion of male homosocial desire—lesbian fiction characteristically exhibits , even as it masquerades a s "realistic " in surface detail, a strongly fantastical, allegorical , or Utopian tendency. —Terr y Castle, The Apparitional Lesbian The Well, published in the same year as Orlando ... is, like Orlando, a "lesbian novel." —Marjori e Garber , Vested Interests As a not-so-closeted love r of opera , I sometimes imagin e what a lesbia n opera migh t loo k like . Th e prospect s ar e dim . Nineteenth-centur y ro mantic oper a celebrate s excessivel y an d ecstaticall y heterosexua l ro mance i n a way tha t test s one' s feminis t le t alon e one's lesbia n politics . Woman i s both the object o f adulatio n an d o f erasure in this strange ar t form tha t idealizes Maria Callas' s ability to sing triumphantly abou t th e victimization o f Lucia d i Lammermoor. A s a feminist critic , I know tha t opera is about a plot and that the Western plot is male and heterosexual . In a boo k abou t oper a libretti , Opera, or the Undoing of Women, th e French feminis t Catherin e Clemen t warn s o f th e dange r o f suc h storie s when couple d wit h beguilin g music : "Th e musi c make s on e forge t th e plot, but the plot sets traps for the imaginary" (10) . Like Helene Cixous , her partner in other theoretical writings, Clement sees safety i n the space of alterities , i n sorceresses , "madmen , Negroes , jesters " (119) ; onl y i n those spaces can "women win" (130) . While this French feminist readin g rescues som e oper a plots , the materna l subtex t tha t writer s lik e Helen e Cixous and Julia Kristev a identify i s not synonymous with a lesbian plo t or subplot . No r ca n I find solac e i n th e musi c i f I believ e feminis t 1 2 • Whe n Is a Lesbian Narrative a Lesbian Narrative ? musicologist Susa n McClary , fo r musi c itsel f partake s o f narrativ e an d is subjec t t o traditiona l plo t structure . McClar y warn s tha t Wester n music operate s accordin g t o "narrativ e demand s o f tonality " (14 ) i n which th e mai n them e o r ke y i s pitted agains t a subtheme , usuall y i n a minor key . Usin g Teres a d e Lauretis' s feminis t theorie s o f narrative , McClary identifie s thi s struggl e a s a battl e betwee n mal e an d femal e elements (14—15) . I t i s n o wonder , then , tha t Carme n i s give n thos e slithering chromatic s an d tha t th e whol e oper a end s o n a n improbabl e chord o f resolutio n (54-67) . No r i s i t strang e tha t th e lov e stor y o f Tristan und Isolde i s told i n five hours o f unrelentin g chromaticis m an d one moment o f mystical, sexual, and tona l resolution. For one seeking a lesbian opera , then , ther e i s n o escap e fro m th e narrativ e institutio n which posit s subjectivit y fo r th e mal e an d marginalit y fo r th e femal e i n a heterosexua l relationshi p tha t assure s hi s triumph , usuall y ove r he r dead body . I would hav e to conclude , then, tha t oper a doubl y inscribe s the Western narrative as unleashed heterosexuality an d anti-feminism. I t would see m to leave the lesbian opera fanati c in alien territory . At th e sam e time , oper a i s ofte n considere d th e provinc e o f ga y male culture . Wayne Koestenbaum' s recen t book , The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, break...

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