Implicit and Explicit Biases for Gender in Opera Roles

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Abstract: Recent scholarship by LaBonte and Bryngelsson has illustrated an imbalance of roles composed for men and women within often-performed operas today. This study examines the possible implications of this on audience members, testing participants’ explicit and implicit biases for gender after watching scenes from an opera by Mozart, performed as written and also performed with the gender roles reversed. The experimental findings have implications for opera companies and for opera pedagogy, and we ask whether continuing to perform frequently performed operas from this era as written is propagating negative stereotypes against women, in terms of both representation and character portrayals.