The Beautiful Voice in Opera: The Injustice of Vocal Discrimination

This essay focuses on certain norms of Western opera, most notably the long-standing practice of excluding those who possess unattractive voices from leading roles in opera productions. Aging voices are sometimes accepted, but otherwise the institution of Western opera reflects and reinforces the common social bias against people with unattractive voices. Resistance to casting ugly voices in leading opera roles is an overlooked category of the marginalization and silencing of a whole class of voices in the performing arts. I consider arguments that might be given in support of continuing this practice, but I argue that they fail. Current practice merits ethical censure, both for the selection process that is part of the means of production and, especially, for the attitude that the audience is prompted to deploy in engaging with the drama.