{"id":{"repo_id":"emich","oai_identifier":"oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-1858"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/emich/oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-1858","repository":{"repo_id":"emich","name":"Eastern Michigan University","base_url":"https://commons.emich.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Masculinity in the nineteenth-century Paris opéra ballet","abstract":"Beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, ballerinas overtook male dancers on the stage of the Paris Opéra Ballet and in critical writings about the ballet. At the same time, there was tremendous growth in bourgeois male subscribership to the Opéra. Subscribers engaged in backstage affairs with ballerinas, replicating an aristocratic tradition and exchanging financial protection for sex. In this thesis I ask why male dancers grew so unpopular at this time and what their unpopularity reveals about French masculinity. I argue that newly enfranchised bourgeois audience members used the Opéra as a site to negotiate their masculinity in conjunction with the aristocracy that had preceded them. They rejected danseurs because they were tangible symbols of the pre-Revolutionary period, but embraced financial protection arrangements with ballerinas to mark their ascension as the most powerful class in France, thus creating a complex and nuanced bourgeois masculinity.","abstract_html":"Beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, ballerinas overtook male dancers on the stage of the Paris Opéra Ballet and in critical writings about the ballet. At the same time, there was tremendous growth in bourgeois male subscribership to the Opéra. Subscribers engaged in backstage affairs with ballerinas, replicating an aristocratic tradition and exchanging financial protection for sex. In this thesis I ask why male dancers grew so unpopular at this time and what their unpopularity reveals about French masculinity. I argue that newly enfranchised bourgeois audience members used the Opéra as a site to negotiate their masculinity in conjunction with the aristocracy that had preceded them. They rejected danseurs because they were tangible symbols of the pre-Revolutionary period, but embraced financial protection arrangements with ballerinas to mark their ascension as the most powerful class in France, thus creating a complex and nuanced bourgeois masculinity.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Christmas, Andrea"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts (MA)","degree_level":"Campus Only Thesis","degree_discipline":"History and Philosophy","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Jesse Kauffman, Ph.D., Chair","John McCurdy, Ph.D.","Ronald Delph, Ph.D."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2013,"date_issued":"2013-07-15T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2013-07-15T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:16:51Z","subjects":["Sex","masculinity","France Nineteenth-Century","Opera de Paris","Ballet","European History"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://commons.emich.edu/theses/487","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Jesse Kauffman, Ph.D., Chair","John McCurdy, Ph.D.","Ronald Delph, Ph.D."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Christmas, Andrea"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2013-09-16T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["History and Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Campus Only Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts (MA)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Sex","masculinity","France Nineteenth-Century","Opera de Paris","Ballet","European History"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://commons.emich.edu/theses/487"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, ballerinas overtook male dancers on the stage of the Paris Opéra Ballet and in critical writings about the ballet. At the same time, there was tremendous growth in bourgeois male subscribership to the Opéra. Subscribers engaged in backstage affairs with ballerinas, replicating an aristocratic tradition and exchanging financial protection for sex. In this thesis I ask why male dancers grew so unpopular at this time and what their unpopularity reveals about French masculinity. I argue that newly enfranchised bourgeois audience members used the Opéra as a site to negotiate their masculinity in conjunction with the aristocracy that had preceded them. They rejected danseurs because they were tangible symbols of the pre-Revolutionary period, but embraced financial protection arrangements with ballerinas to mark their ascension as the most powerful class in France, thus creating a complex and nuanced bourgeois masculinity."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Masculinity in the nineteenth-century Paris opéra ballet"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Jesse Kauffman, Ph.D., Chair","John McCurdy, Ph.D.","Ronald Delph, Ph.D."],"dc:creator":["Christmas, Andrea"],"dc:date.available":["2013-09-16T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, ballerinas overtook male dancers on the stage of the Paris Opéra Ballet and in critical writings about the ballet. At the same time, there was tremendous growth in bourgeois male subscribership to the Opéra. Subscribers engaged in backstage affairs with ballerinas, replicating an aristocratic tradition and exchanging financial protection for sex. In this thesis I ask why male dancers grew so unpopular at this time and what their unpopularity reveals about French masculinity. I argue that newly enfranchised bourgeois audience members used the Opéra as a site to negotiate their masculinity in conjunction with the aristocracy that had preceded them. They rejected danseurs because they were tangible symbols of the pre-Revolutionary period, but embraced financial protection arrangements with ballerinas to mark their ascension as the most powerful class in France, thus creating a complex and nuanced bourgeois masculinity."],"dc:identifier":["https://commons.emich.edu/theses/487"],"dc:subject":["Sex","masculinity","France Nineteenth-Century","Opera de Paris","Ballet","European History"],"dc:title":["Masculinity in the nineteenth-century Paris opéra ballet"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["History and Philosophy"],"thesis:degree_level":["Campus Only Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts (MA)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:16:51Z"}