Power in Madness : a critical investigation into the musical representation of female madness in the mad scenes of Donizetti’s ‘Lucia’ from Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) and Thomas’s ‘Ophélie’ from Hamlet (1868)

Abstract

The 19th-century fascination with madness led to a theatrical phenomenon most palpably represented in the operatic mad scene, where the insane heroine expresses her madness in an aria of ‘phenomenal difficulty’ (Ashley 2002). This research explores the representation of female madness as power in the mad scenes of two famously mad opera characters: Lucia from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) and Ophélie from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet (1868). The objective is to investigate the representation of female madness in the libretti, the musical scores and in visual performances, in order to challenge the notion of female madness as weakness.

The research was conducted using a qualitative research paradigm. The study explored the depiction of female madness in various fields of artistic representation, and the concept of power and female power in literature, resulting in the novel interpretation of these enigmatic mad scenes. This was a hermeneutic study considered within an interpretive paradigm. The research was conducted in three stages: a literature review, a full score analysis and a visual performance analysis.

The results show that the 19th-century gendered paradigm shift of madness to an overtly female disorder, led to various artistic interpretations of the madwoman, most notably in art, literature, theatre and opera. Opera proved to be the ultimate platform for the musical depiction of female madness, particularly due to the virtuosic vocal capacity of the coloratura soprano. In spite of social and political advancement, women were portrayed as weak in operatic plots. It was established that a delicate balance exists between power and powerlessness in the operatic mad scene. Both Lucia and Ophélie are women trapped in a patriarchal environment, and the onset of their madness is traditionally attributed to the weak default of their gender and their inability to process dramatic emotional events. However, the composers’ musical realisation of madness, as well as the embodied performance of both characters by the soloists, accentuates the interplay between madness as weakness and, most importantly, madness as empowerment. The study shows that the powerlessness associated with female madness is paradoxically reversed by the very factors that denote female madness in the operatic mad scene, namely gender and vocal virtuosity. Numerous musical and visual performance elements employed by composers and directors, notably depicting the madwoman as feeble, point to the empowerment of the seemingly ‘weak’ soprano. Musical elements used to portray madness include deconstruction, orchestration and high pitch. The study revealed additional musical elements, such as the inclusion of themes from previous acts of the opera, the use of specific instrumentation and a capella passages for soprano. The study argues that the characteristics that define female madness in music, namely gender and vocal excess, specifically contribute to the representation of madness as power. Elaborate coloratura vocal passages and scant orchestration are the two musical elements used by Donizetti and Thomas to assist in the depiction of female madness as power in the operatic mad scene. Consequently the study establishes that the extravagant vocal virtuosity displayed by the coloratura soprano casts the madwoman as powerful in the operatic mad scene.