Mezzo-sopranos have a very wry way of describing most of the roles available to them in classic opera: “Witches, b*tches, and britches.”
It’s a darkly funny response to a not very funny reality. A mezzo-soprano, though her voice is every bit as much the product of gift and training as a woman with a higher range, can easily find herself shifted off to supporting roles.
When most of us think of opera, we think of the high notes of a coloratura soprano, and the iconic roles that go with it. Violetta in La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, the Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Magic Flute. All showy parts for the highest voices. And not for a woman with a middle range and a darker vocal quality.
There are some lead roles written specifically for mezzos, like Carmen, but most of the big, popularly-performed pieces feature a soprano as the lead. Even if the role is written for a mezzo, like La Cerentola, (Rossini’s Cinderella), it may be within a particular soprano’s range…so they can swoop in and take that, too.
Composers often use the darker, deeper quality of a mezzo voice for wise or evil characters – the witches and b*tches – as a contrast to the bright high notes of the pretty princess. Or they just give the soprano a mezzo best friend with one decent aria.
Which brings us to the britches.
A little background first. In the early days of opera, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there were a fair number of castrati, men who had been, as Ella Shane puts it, “un-manned” to keep their voices high. Amazingly enough, that was not a popular career choice, and it died out with the eighteenth century. Before it did, though, some heroic male roles were written in that range.
Once there were no longer high-voiced men around to sing them, somebody figured out that mezzos could, and might look awfully good doing it, too. So women singers started taking those roles, and some became a sensation, both for their talent, and the simple fact that the opera house was truly the only respectable place in the 19th century that you might see a woman in trousers.
(It’s a whole different #ThrowbackThursday, but Victorian men got amazingly excited at the smallest sight of a female body, and a woman in pants would have been a major fantasy object for the fellas.)
And so, it’s really no wonder that someone like an Ella Shane, blessed with an amazing coloratura mezzo voice, genuine star quality, and a scrappy attitude, would gravitate to trouser roles. Neither she nor her mentor Madame Lentini would have been especially interested in training her for a career as the witch or the best friend; Ella didn’t claw her way out of the tenements for that.
Besides, Ella likes trouser roles. The fencing and swashbuckling and singing are all fun for her. For her author, too, honestly. What’s better than having a heroine who can play both sides of the street, doing her own fighting and swordplay instead of standing there wringing her hands while the boys take the action?
Ella’s latest, A FATAL WALTZ, finds her doing a real-life male masquerade to help a friend, with some unexpected consequences. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens

Got a #Throwback Thursday idea? Drop it in the comments.