The desire to keep opera at a certain cultural level in society seems to be one cause of this sanitization. Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to see La Traviata in "Pretty Woman"; the scene is interpreted as her first taste of this high cultural art form. Who cares that the heroine of the opera, Violetta, is a prostitute who leaves decadent Paris for the only true love of her life? The music is sublime (or so the operagoer is told beforehand) and of course, in Italian, love conquers all the nasty little moral quandaries of life. But whereas Violetta will die tragically at the end of the opera, clearly depicted as a victim of her hedonistic lifestyle, Roberts' character will assert her independence from Gere and at the same time win him back. The differing moral judgments of the same lifestyle is ample testimony to opera's anachronistic qualities in modern-day liberated society.
Where, then, is opera's appeal to a group that undoubtedly profits from the liberation of society It is this underlying sense of morality in opera (upon reflection, Carmen's violent death at the hands of her jilted lover makes her more palatable to society in general?) that so closely ties in with a central theme of Koestenbaum's book; opera's appeal to the "other" of society, to those who deviate from the "norm." As the surrogate voice of those who feared exposure and openness, such as closeted gays, opera liberated them, but also ultimately betrayed them, condemning the heroines with which they identified to tragic ends, reaffirming a morality ultimately.
However, while Koestenbaum contends that the opera queen is an increasingly rare species in the post Stonewall world, that the tragic campiness of the opera "addict" is dated, he in no way gives the impression that opera serves little function in a sexually open world. Instead, the relationship between song and the listener is put forth as a vastly complex set of responses that touch on all sorts of unexplored ambiguities in the human psyche.
Another important aspect of the opera queen's personal identity is, according to Koestenbaum, his choice of one diva, "to reign in the opera queen's heart." Koestenbaum's particular choice, Anna Moffo, is an interesting one, and reflects the sort of unquestioning love that characterizes the opera queen. The fact that Moffo is not uniformly respected as a great artist in all opera circles merely contributes to his sense on loyalty. It is the fallibility of the diva, the tension between her polished star exterior and the human being beneath, that ensures her appeal. Divas are subject as well to a society that views them as bizarre aberrations of nature, supernatural vocal powers; as Koestenbaum points out, the "velvet cord" that separated the diva from her richer and socially more elite audience in the 17th and 18th centuries still exists, albeit invisibly, and the diva's fame is hard-won and hard-kept once she is past her vocal prime.
One diva in particular, Maria Callas, is given an entire chapter. "The Callas Cult" discusses what Koestenbaum admits is a gay phenomenon much larger than that of the opera queen. Her life (more, specifically, her affair with Aristotle Onassis) assumed tabloid proportions; she was mainstream enough to be mentioned in Marilyn Monroe movies; and her personality, both bitchy and warm in practically the same instant, is well reputed. He life, in short, was an opera unto itself. In the interview, Koestenbaum agrees that the dead Callas seems even more of a cultural power than she did while she was alive, due to the explosive popularity of her recordings (both legal and pirated.) But, as he points out, she was "dead" long before her actual death--she had stopped singing and shut herself up in her apartment for years to nurse the broken heart betrayed by Onassis--and thus ensured her place as a tragic heroine.
How fitting (and in the eyes of many, predictable) that Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia" should be listening to Callas's voice as he seeks to express why opera means so much to him, a gay man dying of AIDS and bereft of his position in society. Koestenbaum is of the opinion that this scene serves to establish Hank's gay character, an effective use of opera in a "somewhat shlocky" film. Is Hank's character an opera queen ? Certainly not, according to Koestenbaum. No matter how much opera means in his life, "no opera queen's apartment is that organized" and "no opera queen would have opera on in the background", waiting to be turned up at the appropriate moment. Contrast this with Koestenbaum's explanation of feeling "object" before the "subject" of the soprano voice. Tom Hanks never loses center stage of Maria Callas. Were that to happen, his status as hero of the film might be in question; opera would serve no longer as one aspect of his gay personality but as a consuming addiction that stigmatized him.
Thus, the "Callas Cult" draws from a base much larger in the gay community than just opera queens, that of the professionals in smarmy suits, the successful businesspeople, etc. Koestenbaum, though claiming that his book is "an elegy to the opera queen," addresses the larger question of a universal appeal of opera to gays in general. His last chapter, entitled "A Pocket Guide to Queer Moment's in Opera," is a seemingly random (and highly personal) collection of instances in well-known operas that smack of ambiguity and promise beneath the surface.
Opera's ability to express that which can not be understood through other means is the factor which has ensured its survival as an art form to this day. To a society which stressed conformation, it spoke the language of individuality, and it exalted the aberrant. As our society becomes more secure in its heterogeneity, it is difficult to say if opera will find its cultural niche eroded. However, in The Queen's Throat, Wayne Koestenbaum seeks not to speculate on opera's future but to express the glory of opera's past and the drama of opera's present.