Fly, Robin, Fly : chanteurs castrats, voix & politique des genres

Fly, Robin, Fly : chanteurs castrats, voix & politique des genres brings together various texts and essays that take as their starting point the almost mythical figure of the castrato singer, in order to address various topics specific to gender and feminist studies.

FRONT
The texts address a number of themes that cut across the history of castrato singers, and by extension cross-dressing in opera, while others tackle the subject more broadly, questioning feminism as a “castrating” element, and violence against queer and/or non-gendered bodies. The book also includes fictional texts from different eras to generate a trans-historical connivance of voices.

The textual part of the book includes texts by the following authors: Nils Alix-Tabeling, Daria de Beauvais, Damien Delille, Nahema Hanafi, Caroline Honorien, James Horton, Raphaëlle Legrand, Laure Mathieu-Hanen and Vernon Lee.

Artist Lisa Schitulli created a portrait for each of the eight figures considered here as markers of “queer thinking”.

BACK
The second part of the book is made up of visuals from the archives of the eponymous exhibition held in the Mécènes du Sud exhibition spaces in spring 2021. This exhibition offered a reading of the history of castrato singers based on a selection of works by the artists: Mélissa Airaudi, Nils Alix-Tabeling, Mark Barker, Vanessa Disler, Justin Fitzpatrick, Namio Harukawa, Tiziana La Melia, Marie Lassnig, Marie Legros, Laure Mathieu-Hanen, Tai Shani and Alison Yip.

The images in the exhibition are accompanied by a text by Matthew McLean, who offers a personal reading of the exhibition as an archive of the project.