Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havana’s Lyric Stage, by Susan Thomas, an assistant professor of music and women’s studies, is the first comprehensive study of the Cuban zarzuela, a Spanish-language light opera with spoken dialogue that originated in Spain but flourished in Havana during the early 20th century.
Created by musicians and managers to fill a growing demand for family entertainment, the zarzuela was evidence of the emerging economic and cultural power of Cuba’s white female bourgeoisie to influence the entertainment industry. Thomas explores zarzuela’s function as a pedagogical tool, through which composers, librettists and business managers hoped to control their troupes and audiences by presenting desirable and problematic images of both feminine and masculine identities.
Zarzuela was, Thomas said, “anti-feminist but pro-feminine, its plots focusing on female protagonists and its musical scores showcasing the female voice.” Focusing on character types such as the mulata, the negrito and the ingenue, Thomas uncovers the zarzuela’s richly textured relationship to social constructs of race, class and especially gender.