Playing Queer and Performing Gender at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century: The Unconventional Life, Voice, and Body of Julie D’Aubigny Maupin

The late seventeenth century in Western Europe is an intriguing period for queer historians: the imagined boundaries between genders, sexual orientations, and even biological sexes were considered far more permeable than we might expect of such a patriarchal society. In this study, I look to this era not to find a perfect reflection of my own queer non-binary identity, but to explore the culturally-contingent nature of all understandings of gender. At the centre of my research is seventeenth-century opera singer Julie d’Aubigny Maupin. Maupin was gender- non-conforming in her outward appearance, openly involved with lovers of all genders, and was an expert fencer and duellist. Simultaneously an outstanding exception to the conventions of gender in her day, and an example of the fluid possibilities of gender at the turn of the eighteenth century, Maupin serves as the case study through which I explore the ever-shifting perceptions of queer and gender-non-conforming people in this era. Through careful review of the few available sources, I reconstruct, as far as possible, an outline of Maupin’s life—and, due to the variable reliability of these sources, I note the many vagaries, contradictions, and impossibilities along the way. As I navigate this “speculative biography,” I rely on Valerie Traub’s concept of the unknowability of history, and am therefore careful to hold space for ambiguity, uncertainty, and all too often, an unsatisfiable curiosity. In subsequent chapters, I bring several aspects of Maupin’s life story, including her gender expression, sexuality, and status as a performer, into conversation with the surrounding social context of late seventeenth-century France, allowing me to offer insight into how Maupin’s contemporaries might have viewed her, as well as how her life relates to twenty-first century perspectives on gender. I then explore the many links between identity, character, and voice through an analysis of Maupin as a singer and performer, choosing four of Maupin’s most iconic roles and investigating them using interrelated lenses of historical context, performance practice, and my own embodied experience of singing excerpts from these operas. Lastly, I reflect on my personal connection with Maupin, and explore the philosophical implications of trying to retell a story as strange and unknowable as hers. Drawing on the Brechtian-inspired tradition of feminist theatre criticism set out by Elaine Aston, Sue-Ellen Case, and Gay Gibson Cima, I discuss the process of developing and writing the text for La Maupin, a solo cantata about Maupin’s life which I commissioned and premiered as a way to share her story with a wider audience. Throughout the dissertation, I also bring my research into dialogue with current views on gender-non-conforming people, including the latest research on the voice as a gendered phenomenon.

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