The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire

Why do so many gay men love opera? What makes an "opera queen"? What is the connection between gay sexuality and the full-throated longing that emerges from the diva's mouth? In The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, self-proclaimed opera queen Wayne Koestenbaum investigates the hidden--and unexpected--mysteries that opera and sexuality produce. At once a personal meditation and an iconoclastic, highly entertaining survey of divas, The Queen's Throat is ultimately a profoundly moving, and at times curiously disturbing, investigation of the intricate interplay between art and sexuality, between beauty and eroticism. Koestenbaum is not afraid to challenge, and he more or less grabs readers by the hand to drag them, with nonstop exuberance, through the ornate, highly stylized world of diva worship. Traipsing through descriptions of classic performances, musical autobiographies, personal recollections, historical notations, and the music itself, Koestenbaum creates for us the daring, frenzied, disordered, highly sexual--and ultimately ecstatic--world of the opera queen. --Michael Bronski