English 277: Lesbian and Gay Studies

Professor Brett

17 June 1999

"Threshold of revelation."

--Tony Kushner

One of the experiences gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender persons all share in is the experience of the closet, a place of secrets and the terror of revelation. Another common experience that binds a certain subculture of gay men together is that of diva worship, both in opera and in popular music. In his groundbreaking book on the topic of homosexuality and opera fandom, Wayne Koestenbaum posits that the opera house functions as a place where homoerotic desire is concealed, the opera house effectively functioning as a closet. I believe Koestenbaum's analysis to be sound, but to be missing an important part of the experience of the closet: the terror and consequences of being outed. In the four texts I'll be examining in this paper, I intend to show that the opera house does, indeed, function as a form of closet, both in concealing and revealing secrets, leading to tragedy and destruction, often death. The first is Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, a Victorian novel, where the opera house functions as a site of foreignness and a site where the secret of the villain, Count Fosco, is revealed to the hero. The second text is the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, where in the final scenes, the Marquese de Merteuile is booed from 18^th Century French society in the opera house after her treachery has been publicly exposed. The third text in my analysis is the 1997 film The Fifth Element, a science fiction film that includes a lengthy diva scene towards the end of the film, the alien diva dying in order to reveal the secret to saving the galaxy inside her body. Lastly, I will take a look at David Henry Hwang's 1989 play, M. Butterfly, where issues of opera, postcolonialism, homosexuality, gender, and the closet crystallize in one text in some very interesting ways. Using the theoretical tools provided both by Michel Foucault and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, I intend to explore how these four texts reveal how the opera house figures as a possible Panopticon, and how the "open secret" functions in this matrix.

In his archaeology of the effects of discourse to discipline subjects, Michel Foucault describes how the architecture of the Benthamite Panopticon aids in this disciplining. A Panopticon is a structure, originally designed for prisons but quickly adapted for hospitals, schools, and asylums, composed of individual cells arrayed around a central tower. These individual cells are unable to see one another, but are able to see the central tower, which they are in full view of. Michel Foucault notes that "visibility is a trap" (200). However, they are not in a position, for one reason or another, to tell if the persons in the central tower are able to see them in return. Foucault writes

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick maps out how the closet's ways of knowing function in Western society, or rather, how the closet's ways of not knowing and disavowal function. She claims that "the closet is the defining structure for gay oppression in this century" (71). Further, she writes

Ruth A. Solie argues that the opera box in literature functions as a space where women are put on display, particularly for the benefit of men. She notes

Wayne Koestenbaum argues that music functions in ways similar to the closet, that it helps to conceal illicit desires. He notes

The first text I intend to examine is a Victorian sensation novel by Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White. Like the soap opera of television, this novel is full of intrigue, romance, mistaken identities, secrets, and the like. The novel is told as a series of narratives, mostly lengthy journal entries, written from a variety of characters' perspectives. The main plot of the novel involves three central characters, Marian Halcombe, Laura Fairlie later Lady Glyde, and Walter Hartright, the central romance between Laura and Walter being thwarted by Laura's prior betrothal to Sir Percival Glyde, one of the novels two primary villains. The other primary villain is an Italian noble, Count Fosco, who will be the focus of my discussion here. Count Fosco is a man of intellect and taste who particularly enjoys the company of Marian Halcombe, but finds it unfortunate that they're forced into the position of being enemies. Eventually, through his own ineptness, Sir Percival Glyde is killed in a fire in a church, but at this point, Walter Hartright will not rest until both Sir Percival and Fosco are eliminated. Hartright enlists the aid of the only other Italian in the novel, Professor Pesca, to track down Fosco, who Hartright saw for the first time earlier that day. Hartright tracks Fosco to the Opera, where "the performance announced was 'Lucrezia Borgia'" (528). Hartright hopes that he'll be able to catch Fosco in the Opera, writing "there was a chance, at least, that the Count might be easily visible among the audience, to me, and to anyone with me" (528). Hartright hopes to put the Count, in some ways, in the position of Solie's luxurious trap. Pesca, at this point, is not aware of Hartright's intent in bringing him to the Opera house that night. In fact, Pesca and Hartright do find Count Fosco in the audience that evening, and during the intermission, Hartright points Fosco out to Pesca, asking if he recognizes the man. Pesca says he does not, but his eyes meet Fosco's, and it becomes clear that while the Professor may not recognize Fosco, Fosco recognizes Pesca. Hartright notes that not only did Fosco know Pesca, but

Pesca, it turns out, had joined a secret Italian political organization in his youth, one that required absolute loyalty. Pesca indicates that it is not possible to leave this organization, and that any betrayal of the Brotherhood or its secrets is cause for the murder of the traitor by another member of the Brotherhood. Like many revolutionary organizations, the structure of this Brotherhood is set up so members do not necessarily know one another, in small units. Furthermore, members of the Brotherhood have a secret mark on them, "a brand deeply burnt in the flesh and stained of a bright-red color…circular in form, and so small that it would have been completely covered by a shilling coin" (537). Hartright surmises that Count Fosco must be a member of the Brotherhood, as well, and fears that Pesca recognized their mutual membership. Fosco flees England altogether, going to France. Because his membership in the Brotherhood has been revealed, another member of the Brotherhood is sent to hunt him down and kill him.

Sam Abel claims that "we often forget the importance of looking in the opera house. Opera, because of its music, supposedly appeals more to the ear than the eye" (47). In Collins' text, however, the metaphors for vision are replete in the section involving the Opera house, while descriptions of music, sound, hearing, or listening are minimal, at best. For example, writing of Fosco, Hartright records that

The 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons actually contains within it two significant opera scenes, and one scene with a castrati. Furthermore, in both of the major opera scenes, secrets and their exposure, or the threat of exposure and the dangers of that exposure, figure prominently. This film, based on a play by Christopher Hampton, which in turn was based on the epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos, is a story of intrigue, secret affairs, and the ruin that these intrigues and affairs wreak upon people. The plot of the film is complex, but at the center are the two villains, the Marquese de Merteuile and the Vicomte de Valmont. The Marquese and the Vicomte have set up a wager between them, that if he seduces Madame de Tourvell, known for her virtue, then he will be allowed back in the Marquese's bed. Meanwhile, for his own reasons, Valmont seduces a very young Cecile de Volanges, who is in love with Chevalier Danceny. Upon finding this out, the Marquese seduces Danceny. Here we've got a plot that goes well beyond Sedgwick's homoerotic triangulation and into some very complicated erotic arrangements based on competition between men and women. Upon his seduction and subsequent ruination of Madame de Tourvell, Valmont comes to demand his reward from Merteuile, who refuses him. Valmont gathers the correspondence between all parties and gives it to Danceny, after fighting and being mortally wounded by the Chevalier. The correspondence reveals everything that he and the Marquese plotted.

In the first opera box scene, the Marquese de Merteuile is at the opera with her niece, Cecile de Volanges. Cecile has revealed to the Marquese that she's madly in love with Chevalier Danceny, but Merteuile, who apparently sympathizes with Cecile, informs her that this love cannot be. Merteuile has information that Cecile's marriage has already been arranged, not to Danceny, but to a 36-year old man. Merteuile conveys this information to Cecile in the privacy of her opera box, where the music obscures her discussion. Cecile, of course, protests this, complaining that he's already an "old man." Merteuile, maintaining an air of sympathy throughout her entire relationship with Cecile during the film, tells her niece that she might be able to find a way to arrange it so that Cecile might correspond with Danceny, but only if all correspondence goes through the Marquese. Cecile agrees to this and the scene in the opera box ends. Nonetheless, the opera house becomes established, in this scene, as a place where secrets are both kept and revealed. This scene establishes the opera box as a private space, mostly for the sharing and keeping of secrets rather than their exposure, but there are a few secrets that get revealed; primarily, Cecile's impending marriage and Cecile's love for her music instructor Danceny. This scene is brought into stark relief when compared to the final scene.

In the film's final scene, Merteuile steps into her opera box, alone, and everyone in the theater turns to her and stares. A long silence ensues while the Marquese surveys the audience, trapped much as Solie's woman is trapped, in full view and on display. An anonymous man below in the crowd hoots at her and the entire audience begins to boo. The Marquese de Merteuile turns around, still being booed and jeered at, and begins to walk out of her opera box. She stumbles, a visual symbol of the stumble and subsequent social fall she has taken, but regains her composure and leaves the opera house. It is clear that the audience, representing all of French society, is aware of the Marquese's treachery, that Danceny has released the letters to society at large, and furthermore, that they do not approve. The entire opera house here has become a Panopticon; we as viewers are not aware of the identity of the man who begins to boo her, as his face becomes lost in the crowd of faces in the audience. The Marquese's private opera box has suddenly become a very open and public space, and she has become the spectacle. All eyes have turned to her, and we are reminded of the importance of "looking in the opera house." Here, as in Wilkie Collins' novel The Woman in White, the attention has turned from the diva on the stage to the diva in the audience.

Turning attention to the diva on the stage, I'd like to focus, for a moment, on the alien diva in Luc Besson's 1997 film The Fifth Element. In this science fiction film, Korbin Dallas is given the task of saving the universe, as is often the plot of science fiction; but he's also given the task of protecting Lelu, "the fifth element," who is the ultimate weapon against evil in the milieu of the film. She's an artificial human being, perfect in every possible way. Lelu is not the only key to salvation, however. There are four stones representing the other four elements that were kept separate from Lelu, in the event that one or the other was intercepted. In fact, the ship carrying Lelu's genetic material is intercepted and crash-lands. The race responsible for protecting these keys to salvation has sent the four stones with an alien diva, to be delivered on a cruise ship orbiting a resort planet. Things are arranged so that Korbin and Lelu end winning tickets to this cruise, where the diva will meet them and deliver the stones. Of course, the agents of the evil forces in the film also find out that the stones will be on this cruise, and arrange to be on it themselves. Korbin enters the opera house, which is quite luxurious considering it's on a cruise ship, and the curtain opens on the alien diva. The diva has appeared earlier in the film, but shrouded from head to toe in a blue garment showing only her eyes, much like the chador many fundamentalist Islamic countries require women to wear.

When the curtain opens, the diva is revealed to everyone for the first time. Of all the creatures in the movie, she is the only unique alien species; there are no other characters, even in the background, like her, putting her in the position of being very nearly completely Other to every other character in the film. Her skin is an electric blue color, she has no hair but her head is very strangely shaped, tubular and curving towards the back. From the side of her head, four long tubular tendrils droop. Her dress, which is a shade very similar to her skin and could appear to be part of her, has a train in the front rather than in back, and when she walks forward, it lifts up and down in a very awkward fashion, almost like fins or flippers. Even her lips and fingernails are a dark navy blue. She begins her aria standing before a large window viewing the resort planet the cruise ship is orbiting, which is very similar to earth as viewed from space--blue with white swathes of clouds obscuring it. Her aria begins very traditionally, although, as a listener, I am not able to tell if it's in any known language or if it is, like many opera arias, in Italian, French, or German. I suspect that, like the diva's physical otherness, the aria is sung in a language that has been created for the purposes of the film. As her aria progresses, the film cuts to Lelu, who is not in the audience, and to the evil orc-like aliens, who are searching for the stones. The aliens break into the diva's quarters and shoot both of her assistants, a man who is almost the epitome of an opera queen and a woman who appears to be queer of some sort or another (although the entire film strikes me as queer, even Bruce Willis' hypermasculine portrayal of Korbin Dallas). As the diva's aria continues, the evil aliens search through her quarters and Lelu remembers them from the crash-landing of her ship. She decides to attack them, and at this point, the music of the aria changes from a relatively traditional-sounding opera aria to a more postmodern, almost disco, sound. Lelu's attack on the aliens is choreographed with the diva's singing, establishing a connection between the two figures; it's as if Lelu were a physical extension of the diva's music, her aria become corporeal. The diva's aria, at this point, becomes obviously technologically altered, sliding into notes that do not seem possible for the human voice to create. Lelu defeats the orc-like aliens, but is confronted by another of the film's bad guys who has a relatively large weapon. She tosses him the strongbox that everyone has assumed has the stones inside.

The orc-like aliens, routed, regroup and decide to go on a rampage, beginning in the opera house. In the carnage, the diva, still on stage although her aria has ended, is shot in the stomach. She falls to the ground, blue ichor oozing from her body, and Korbin Dallas rushes to her aid. He tries to stop the "bleeding," but can't even keep the diva conscious. She reawakens to reveal to him that Lelu is the fifth element and that she needs his love in order to survive. The scene shifts to the character who has stolen the strongbox as he manages to open it, only to discover that the stones are not there. Korbin Dallas asks the diva where the stones are, and she replies that they are inside her. Korbin is puzzled by this, not figuring the diva to literally mean inside her body, but eventually decides that must be what she meant. The alien diva dies, and he reaches inside her body and extracts the stones, covered in blue ichor.

Once again, we have the revelation of critical but secret information, and again, this revelation occurs within the confines of the opera house. Also, this revelation is directly related to the death of the diva. More than the revelation about the stones, which are crucial to the salvation of the universe, we also have the revelation of that Lelu is the fifth element and that she needs Korbin's love. The diva conceals a secret that is quite literally contained within her own body and that requires her death in order to reveal. Furthermore, this secret has very much an open secret, as the stones are not hidden in a chest somewhere far away, but they are hidden inside the diva herself, who is in full view of most of the people on the cruise ship. She is the object of everyone's gaze, her secret also well within the purview of their gaze, but still hidden in spite of this fact, very much like the operation of Sedgwick's closet or Miller's open secret. Like the previous two examples, the opera house in The Fifth Element operates very much as a Panopticon, peering inside, quite literally, the object of the gaze.

Finally, I'd like to examine David Henry Hwang's 1989 play M. Butterfly, a play in which both Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly and the Peking Chinese opera figure very prominently. Again, this is a very complicated story, based on the true story of a French diplomat to China in the 1960s. Gallimard, the rather socially awkward French diplomat, already has preconceived notions about "Oriental women" based on Puccini's Butterfly when he encounters Song Lilung. Song seduces him, or he seduces Song, even though he's a married man. He rises rapidly through the diplomatic ranks with a newfound confidence after his affair begins, and other diplomats come to him for analyses of the Chinese mind. His attitude remains that "Orientals will always submit to a greater force" (Hwang 2.4, 46), a claim shaped by Madama Butterfly. He advises that the Americans should invade Vietnam on this basis. Ultimately, he loses his position as Vice Consul due to his Orientalist conceptions, and is sent back to France. His affair with Song has continued throughout this entire period, but she has refused to allow him to see her naked. She even avoids an encounter where he orders her to strip by revealing to him that she is pregnant. She has gathered information about his job from him during their encounters. More and more, he believes his situation is panning out much like Pinkerton's from Madama Butterfly. Song, who he refers to as "Butterfly," even brings the baby boy for him to see, but at this point, the Cultural Revolution has begin and her status as an artist puts her under suspicion. He goes back to France, she to work on a commune in Hunan Province.

Years pass, but eventually, Song makes it to France to find Gallimard has divorced his wife and his position is ruined, although he's still involved in the diplomatic corps. She lives with him for some time, and eventually pressures him to steal diplomatic documents and give them to her, telling him that the Chinese government is threatening their son. He does this somewhat reluctantly at first, but eventually succumbs. Of course, he gets caught by the French authorities, and is put on trial for espionage. Song enters the courtroom in a suit, and it is revealed to Gallimard that Song is a man. Gallimard is convicted and sent to prison while Song is deported back to China, and Gallimard kills himself, in drag as Butterfly with the "Love Duet" from Puccini's opera playing.

The action of the play takes place primarily in Gallimard's prison cell, with other scenes occurring in flashback in other places, including the Chinese opera house in Beijing. Some of these scene changes take place dizzyingly, switching from Gallimard's prison cell to the Chinese opera house, for example, or, more confusingly, combining the Chinese opera and the courtroom in the scene where Song strips naked, finally, in front of Gallimard, after Gallimard has seen him in a suit in the court. "Music from the 'Death Scene' from Butterfly blares over the house speakers. It is the loudest thing we've heard in this play" are the stage directions beginning the scene in the courtroom when Song confronts Gallimard with his identity (Hwang 3.2, 84). The scene progresses:

The layered framing of this play makes it quite complicated, particularly in this scene, to place exactly where we are. The entire play is to take place in the present in Gallimard's cell and as a series of his flashbacks to the past, therefore making the above-mentioned scene one of his flashbacks. It begins in the courtroom with Song in the witness box, but halfway through the scene, slides back to the Chinese opera house, even further back in Gallimard's past, but rushing towards the revelation of Song's secret. As soon as Song's gender becomes revealed, the scene ends and we return to Gallimard's prison cell in the present, blurring the distinction between courtroom, opera house, and prison. The Panoptic qualities of the opera house are driven home in this play through this scene shifting technique; Hwang literally makes the comparison between the prison and the opera house through the text of the play.

While these four texts are very different, the thread that runs through all of them is that the opera house functions as a site of the revelation of critical secrets. In some cases, this revelation directly leads to or is deeply involved in the death or ruination of a central figure in the text, as it is in The Woman in White, Dangerous Liaisons, and M. Butterfly. Even in The Fifth Element, the revelation of the stones leads to the death of the diva, although she is not as central to that text as Fosco, Merteuile, and Gallimard are to their texts, respectively. In order to reveal these secrets, the opera house must function to conceal them, at least for a period of time, and it does this. For example, Song Lilung's gender is kept secret for years in the Chinese opera house, although to the Chinese, this would be an open secret, as men always played the roles of women in Chinese opera, a fact Song alludes to (Hwang 2.7, 63). The diva in The Fifth Element conceals the stones in plain view, as I argued earlier in this paper, in another example of the concealing aspects of the opera house. The individual in the opera house is on display, as Ruth A. Solie argues, both the diva and the member of the audience, be they male or female. All of these texts show that the opera house is as much a site where seeing is as important as listening, both in terms of looking at the stage with the alien diva, and looking at other audience members with Count Fosco and with the Marquese de Merteuile. In fact, with Dangerous Liaisons and The Woman in White, the sense of vision takes precedence over the sense of hearing. This brings us back to Abel's point about "looking in the opera house," both in the sense of looking for something in the opera house (the stones in The Fifth Element) and simply looking. We look in the opera house for the secrets it contains, or possibly contains, within--and given the espionage, the secret love affairs, the mystical stones that will save the universe, and the hidden genders and agendas, there often are secrets contained somewhere in the opera house.