Because depictions of sexuality and other situations involving the human body are becoming more prevalent in operatic productions, singers are more frequently facing the question of whether they are willing to appear nude or partially nude onstage. Of those who have made the decision to disrobe onstage, what factored into their decision to do so? And if you’re not comfortable with taking it all off, what options do you have? Singers who have completely or partially disrobed and singers who have turned down jobs because they were asked to share their experiences here.
Being Able to Sing the Role is the Key Question
Bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch appeared in Howard Shore’s The Fly in Paris in the summer of 2008 and at Los Angeles Opera in September 2008. At the end of the first act, his character strips naked before stepping into his telepod to transport himself to a neighboring pod, re-creating the same scene from the movie. The nudity served the symbolic purposes of the character ridding himself of everything not connected with the flesh and transforming from a pure state to a higher state.
“After crouching naked in the first pod in full view for at least a minute, I emerged in a cascade of light and dry ice to stand facing the audience as the music crescendoed to end the act. The pose that I struck re-created Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of The Vitruvian Man and the scientific, artistic, and transformative themes associated with it,” Okulitch says. He is quick to point out that this moment of the opera received much less attention in Paris than in the U.S.
Okulitch made the decision to appear nude without hesitation. For him, it was natural at that moment in the story. “What moral dilemma is there with appearing naked? I don’t think it’s an issue. It’s theater. People should be more concerned about taking roles they can’t sing than whether or not they’re going to be naked,” he says.
Avoiding Distractions and Standing Up for One’s Beliefs
Baritenor Doff Procter sang Tony in West Side Story in Austria in 1995. The stage director felt that, in his version of the story, Tony and Maria had more time together on the balcony than to simply sing and flirt. The director asked for even more physicality to develop between them with the two only in underpants by the end of the balcony scene. Procter did not know that before accepting the role.
“The Maria and I both balked at doing it because we knew it was neither true to the original play nor Bernstein’s musical, and we felt it would be a total distraction from the scene and the music—plus, we refused to feed this director’s voyeuristic feelings toward the Maria. We even threatened to walk out of the production,” he says. The stage director eventually relented. Procter wore long pants, but no shirt, and the Maria wore a slip, bra, and panties.
“I’m Not Shy”
Soprano Donata Cucinotta appeared partially nude as the Muse of Dance, a role invented by the director, in Opera Colorado’s November 2009 production of The Tales of Hoffmann. During the scene when Hoffmann dons Coppélius’ magical glasses and sees “the soul of Olympia,” Cucinotta was topless, facing upstage behind a scrim, with a drape over her shoulder, the side of her breast visible. Cucinotta felt the appearance added to the fantasy world created in the scene.
“I trusted the creative team and Opera Colorado that it would be tastefully done,” Cucinotta says. “The company was very delicate and understanding about the entire process, and even offered pasties for modesty. I’ve never been shy and I’m a bit of a hippie, so it’s not that big of a deal.”
Ensemble Support Helps
Bass-baritone Justin Fyala has been in two productions that required nudity. As a statue in a staging of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, his full front was naked to the audience. In a production of Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, when his character was invited to come inside from the cold, he was directed to undress with his back to the audience. One second after he removed his boxer shorts—blackout.
“For both of the situations, I was comfortable because of the support of the rest of the cast,” he says, “and because I had known about it with plenty of time to come to terms with it. Of course, it became easier with more performances. I was also focusing on my singing almost too much to worry about my body.”
Thrice Asked, Thrice Declined
Soprano Aleicia Byrnes recounts three times in her career when she was asked to bare her bosom. The first was as the First Lady in a production of The Magic Flute. “My bosom was to be hanging nude out of a circling leather pattern,” she recounts. “As I have a rather large bosom, I didn’t think it appropriate for this part to upstage anyone else. They bought me a bra with a beige transparent look.”
In a production of Tosca, when the collar of an evening dress was to be torn off to leave her half topless, she and the soprano double cast in the same role banded together to object. The two sopranos’ wishes were respected, a fact Byrnes is still grateful for. “I fear, had [the other soprano] said ‘yes,’ she would have bagged the premiere.”
A costumer came to Byrnes’ rescue in the third instance when she was playing Marie in a production of Wozzeck. “The costume maker let me know that I would not be wearing a bra under a certain costume, because it was supposed to come as a surprise to me on premiere night when the baritone ripped my dress open from the top,” she remembers. “Thank goodness this was an elderly head of the costume department who had tenure, couldn’t be fired, and obviously didn’t agree with ‘surprising’ me. I never heard anything more about this bit of staging. I wore a bra and it didn’t happen.”
As for her own ideas about nudity on stage, Byrnes agrees with an old French adage, “For an actor to take off his clothes is too much disguise.” Then adding her own paraphrase, she says, “Rather than see the ‘character,’ we see the actor ‘in private.’”
A Reflection of Real Life
In October 2009, Indiana University mounted a production of Annunciation + Visitation: Operatic Projections of Her Sexual Insight, combining art and technology to explore two different expressions of female sexuality: childbearing and sexual violence. Coloratura soprano Rebecca Duren was asked to perform as the lead character—a rape victim—in the second half, an assignment that required partial nudity.
“I knew when accepting the role that there would be partial nudity. The role was sort of designed with me in mind [because] the director knows that I am not shy,” Duren says. She believes that her acceptance of her body and her willingness to appear nude give her an edge over other singers.
“Competition is fierce and, early in my career, I decided what I would and would not be willing to do to get a role. I have no moral or ethical dilemma with nudity, so I have no issue with it on stage,” she says.
For this staging of Annunciation + Visitation, Duren was warned that she would be wearing a revealing costume. It was a satin slip, but it became more of a “see-through” satin slip when Duren’s character took a bath, soaking the costume. “Nudity does not equal sexuality—or, at least, it doesn’t have to,” Duren says. “It equals real life, just like when we see a mother breastfeeding. That nudity as real life carries over into opera and other performing arts.”
Saying ‘No’ Can Come at a Price
Rachel from Los Angeles has a no-nudity policy. Her manager knows this and screens parts for her with this in mind. Being true to her stance hasn’t always been easy. “I had an experience talking with a producer once,” she shares, “where she asked me, ‘Would you be willing to do it if it was necessary for the character?’ My answer at the time was a simple, ‘No.’ That was a tough call. It cost me a relationship. But there are more relationships to develop, and other people I’m interested in collaborating with.”
When saying no, Rachel doesn’t worry about offering too much explanation. “The producer or director need never know that I’m choosing this for moral reasons,” she says. “In fact, it’s best if they don’t. I’m simply making an artistic decision.
“Everyone’s threshold is different,” she continues, “and in art, all need to be respected. The question I ask myself is, ‘Will the truthfulness of this character at this moment be lessened if the performer is in a body suit?’ You never have to actually kill someone on stage, right? Or die? Why should nudity be any different? The performance will be honest if the person can really act.
“In the end, solid technique, knowing your worth as a person and an artist, and being a creative thinker can generally save you from damaging career or emotional moves. A motto I like to remember, ‘Never bend your character to take a bow.’”
A New Feeling of Liberation
In October 2004 for Minneapolis Musical Theatre, tenor Shaun Nathan Baer played the title character in Laurence O’Keefe’s Bat Boy: The Musical, based on a 1992 news story. The character is a half-bat, half-human hybrid that was abandoned at birth and lives in the wild. “Clothing for the character at that point would make no sense,” Baer says. In the opening scene, three local teenagers discovered him in a cave in West Virginia, and he runs on and off stage baring all during a chase sequence.
“I found the experience both exhilarating and liberating,” he says. “It can become easy to hide behind our insecurities and our habits, whether mental or physical. When I had nothing to hide behind, I could take greater risks.” He feels that the production gave him freedom and confidence that he has brought to the rest of his work.
More Than Morals
One singer who wishes to remain anonymous confided that she has turned down more than one job requiring nudity for reasons other than morals. “I was uncomfortable with my body being semi-nude. I knew the director would agree as soon as he saw me partially naked. I didn’t want to go through that, so I said no. It isn’t a moral dilemma for me; it’s because I’m embarrassed by my body.”
In another role, she was very uncomfortable with the proposed costume. “A different director wanted my costume cut apart so that my rather large stomach hung out. He probably wanted my character to look trashy, or just plain awful.”
This time, though, she spoke up and kept the job. “I was brave and told him ‘no.’ He was angry and rattled on about American prudes, but let me be. I would not have been able to perform with my whole stomach hanging out. I don’t know what his goal was—humiliation?”
Separation of Character and Singer
While performing as Herodias in Salome in 2006, in a production that required partial nudity for the entire cast, mezzo-soprano Lauren Gismondi worked under a director who had a vision that everyone, except for John the Baptist, was living in sin. Specifically, each principal represented one of the seven deadly sins. Gismondi had to appear nearly topless, as dictated by the contract, but was not entirely comfortable walking around in lacy pants and a bra because of her own body issues.
“By the second week of rehearsals, I had found new confidence in strutting across the stage baring all, which we did once as an exercise. This is not something for everyone. Most of my training has been in acting and, for some reason, actors in general have an easier time living and moving in their own skin—something I wish singers were able to do better,” Gismondi says. She believes the ultimate task is to separate the character from the performer.
The Voice Is the Concern
Dramatic tenor Dan Chamandy has performed almost completely naked with only a dance belt for coverage in two different productions. The first was Paul Hindemith’s Neues vom Tage, in which he played an experienced woman pleaser simultaneously seducing two women. He was required to get into a bathtub with a naked woman and a partially naked woman; the bathtub was filled with bubbles, and the scene was written into the score.
“Although it was still a little uncomfortable to get into a bathtub with two women who I have been working with for several years,” Chamandy says, “on performance day it is the last thing that goes through one’s head. The function of the voice is much more of a concern than anything else.”
The second was an operetta based on the Ring Cycle, Oscar Straus’ Die lustigen Nibelungen. The role required him to emerge from a bathtub and sing an aria while holding a blow-up swan as coverage. “I had done the role in another theater without any hint of nudity, so I was not aware I would be required to be so exposed onstage. It turned out to be one of the best scenes of the night and seemed to fit into the comedy of the show,” he says.
