Urban Soundscapes

Performing Celebrity and Anna Renzi's Cross-Dressed Performance as Ergindo

“…exalts Renzi's luminous performance of Deidamia cross-dressed as Ergindo, in which she transgressed normative gender prescriptions while presenting a tantalizing diversion involving homoerotic scenes. The encomiast Gigante claims that "in full wonder, / And in amazement, those who hear lift their eyelashes," but after committing this first mistake, "languishing in her force he is despondent" (88). Seeing her, he loses his male virility to languish, or "hang" as F.M.G.…”

“…86 Indeed, people of varying socioeconomic classes lived together in the same neighborhoods, where men and women of all classes by necessity passed one another in public spaces. 87 Within the tightly packed architectural complex, 88 citizens were undoubtedly aware of the diva's unique status.…”