Introduction

This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part shows how thinking about operatic constructions of masculinity from an anthropological perspective can contribute to a wider understanding of discourses on masculinity. It focuses on proletarian or peasant discourses on masculinity that centred around the figure of the suffering Mother, who, in her 'work of pain' grounds Mediterranean rural masculinities through her performative act of suffering. The part deals with explicitly with verismo melodrama, drawing out the key elements of the peasant masculinities represented in that convention. It focuses on the male vocal fetish, picks up on Mladen Dolar's assertion that modernism tended to insist that 'there must be an object other than the fetish'. The part shows how discourses on creativity, masculinity and hermaphroditism circle around the figure of the male homosexual in modernist discourses on masculinity in England.