A Night at the Opera: Performance, Theatricality, and Identity in the Music of Queen
Abstract
Many discussions of the rock band Queen (vocalist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian
May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon) reference their theatricality, yet few
analyze what makes Queen’s music and performances theatrical. Through examining
Queen’s theatricality from different angles, this thesis shows the different layers of Queen’s
performativity and its relationship to identity.
After an introductory chapter that surveys the literature about Queen, the second
chapter of the thesis analyzes the theatricality of Queen’s music from a stylistic basis. The
chapter begins by addressing Queen’s camp theatricality through their use of music hall,
operetta, and musical theatre styles. It then addresses their drama-based theatricality through
their use of opera and film music styles. The third chapter analyzes Queen’s performance of
gender and sexuality through their use of different genres. It first discusses Queen’s
participation in the genre of glam rock, in which they performed a more feminine persona,
but were still understood as heterosexual. Then it explores Queen’s disco and funk
influenced music and Mercury’s “castro clone” image as simultaneously a more masculine
and more homosexual performance. Finally the chapter analyzes the various rock genres
Queen used throughout their career in order to perform heterosexual masculinity, including
hard rock, stadium rock, and heavy metal. The fourth chapter focuses primarily on
Mercury’s performance of ethnicity and nationality through his music. Taking into account
his history as a first-generation Parsi Zanzibarian who immigrated to London, it first looks at
his and Queen’s expressions of “Britishness” through the figure of the British pop dandy and
their use of the British national anthem. Then it turns to discussing the influence of
Mercury’s Persian and African heritage on select songs. Finally, it examines religion as it
relates to cultural identity, specifically Mercury’s Zoroastrian heritage and the ways he used
the aesthetics of heavy metal to articulate his place within that religion. The fifth chapter
concludes the thesis by taking a holistic view of how all of these layers of performativity
operated simultaneously, endowing Queen’s music with a deep and complex sense of
theatricality.
Table of Contents
Introduction -- Musical theatricality -- Performing gender and sexuality -- Performing ethnicity and nationality -- Conclusion -- Appendix
Degree
M.M. (Master of Music)