Opera

The Undoing of Women

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by Catherine Clement,

Translated by Betsy Wing,

Foreword by Susan McClary

University of Minnesota Press

Due/Published June 1999, 224 pages, paper

ISBN 0816635269

Minnesota is releasing a new edition of Clement's Opera.

Catherine Clement analyzes the plots of over thirty prominent operas--Otello and Siegfried to Madame Butterfly and The Magic Flute--through the lenses of feminism and literary theory to unveil the negative messages about women in stories familiar to every opera listener.

"A provocative and original examination, by a prominent French philosopher and cultural critic, of an art form in which women rarely win."--New York Times Book Review

"Clement's Opera intertwines the tension among the amateur's love, the intellectual's analysis, and the feminist's consciousness embodied in one woman's arguments. A feminist critique written by a woman who loves opera, an 'amateur' in the best sense of the word."--Queen's Quarterly

"The most original and controversial book about opera in a long while."--The Washington Post

". . . an engaging, continuously stimulating volume . . . . Clement writes from the heart to the heart . . . . She scintillates and astonishes on nearly every page."--The Sunday Times

"Music critics . . . will welcome [this book] . . . . Clement, focusing on the position of women, examines traditional operatic plots and characters from a woman's point of view and presents a vociferous indictment of literary and theatrical dimensions."--The Antioch Review

"Few authors write so gracefully and with such penetrating insight. For those with an interest in opera, but disturbed by its sociological implications, this work is highly recommended."--Ear Magazine

"Clement's book should be considered one of the first major examples of feminist criticism of opera works in their historical perspectives."--Translation Review, #29

"The University of Minnesota Press has provided a valuable service to non-Francophones interested in French feminist thought by making this volume available in English. . . . an impassioned statement bearing the marks of the intellectual French currents of the late 1970s and of the personal experience of the author engaged in a struggle familiar to feminists who discover that old friends have lied."--South Atlantic Review

"Like all good criticism the value of Clement's analyses lies not in the truth or falsity of what they assert, but in their ability to direct us to important, meaningful, revealing, and rewarding features of the works they describe."--Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism