Il contro-ordine femminile nella voce musicale contemporanea

Abstract

Drawing from the comparison with some archetypal female figures (Antigone, Medea), the essay studies contemporary music across genres and styles, investigating the ways in which female singing constitutes in itself – as timbral-articulatory conduct, not as a vehicle of referential meanings – an ethical order alternative to the dominant male and sexist one. In particular, the following different cases are examined: the music theater work Medea by the male composer Adriano Guarnieri; the figure of Yoko Ono in the collective imagination; Diamanda Galás’s oeuvre. The reflection then moves on to the queer vocal counter-order, especially in the work of the transgender author-singer Anohni; and on a feminine but non-gay-queer male model, through a comprehensive exam of Anglo-American popular song.