Roland Beach

This International Women's Day, I'm thinking about how the opera singer workforce is disproportionately women, and yet the available principal roles are disproportionately for men. The rigidity of gendered casting norms denies cis women equal employment opportunities and equal pay and pushes many trans people out of the field entirely.

This excellent article from Dr. Dana Vargas of The Empowered Musician talks more about the problem (and cites some staggering statistics, like an analysis by Brooke Larimer showing 152 male principal roles and only 96 female principal roles in the 25 most performed operas).

What can opera companies and training programs do to address these disparities?
-Pick fairer seasons! There are many excellent operas, both old and new, with female or gender-flexible roles making up the majority of the cast. Not every opera in a season has to be composed by dead cis white men for a cast of mostly men.
-Normalize gender- and octave-swapping of roles to to fit singers who aren't cis men!
-Hire more people who aren't cis men in leadership positions!

Supply and Demand: Gender Disparity in opera (Part 1) — The Empowered Musician Approximately three out of every four singers that graduate today with a bachelors or masters degree in vocal performance are female. So what’s the big deal?