S6E2: Julie D’Aubigny

She's an icon, she's a legend, and she is the moment: today’s subject caused such a scandal in her life that even its fictionalized depiction in a novel was banned by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. The Mozart of bisexual drama, sword-fighting crossdressing opera singer Julie D'Aubigny burned through a dizzying series of lives, loves, husbands, mistresses, swordfights, operatic performances, lovers, and successes at the Paris Opera before dying in a convent in her early 30s.

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SOURCES

“Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes: Julie D’Aubigny.” In The Dublin University Magazine, 408–10. William Curry, Jun., and Company, 1854.

Blackmer, Corrine, and Patricia Juliana Smith, eds. En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera. 0 edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

Carlton, Genevieve. “Meet The Sword-Fighting, Bisexual Opera Singer Who Broke All The Rules In 17th-Century France.” All That’s Interesting, March 3, 2022. https://allthatsinteresting.com/julie-daubigny.

Cuttle, Jade. “The Story of Julie d’Aubigny: The French Opera-Singing Sword Fighter.” Culture Trip, August 8, 2018. https://theculturetrip.com/france/articles/the-story-of-julie-daubigny-the-french-opera-singing-sword-fighter/.

Gautier, Theophile. Mademoiselle de Maupin. Translated by Patricia Duncker. Revised edition. Cambridge, London: Penguin Classics, 2005.

Giovetti, Olivia. “Women In Love.” VAN Magazine, April 9, 2020. https://van-magazine.com/mag/women-in-love/.

Harris, Joseph. Hidden Agendas: Cross-Dressing in 17th-Century France. Tübingen: Narr Dr. Gunter, 2011.

Hoddinott, Fiona Zublin, Meradith. “The Badass Rogue Who Cross-Dressed and Dueled Her Way to Infamy.” OZY(blog), January 27, 2020. http://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/the-badass-rogue-who-cross-dressed-and-dueled-her-way-to-infamy/76908.

Interlude. “The Daring Criminal Swordswoman Who Became an Opera Star!” Interlude (blog), October 28, 2016. https://interlude.hk/lesbian-diva-swordswoman-julie-daubigny-aka-mademoiselle-maupin/.

Kelly Gardiner. “The Real Life of Julie d’Aubigny,” May 11, 2014. https://kellygardiner.com/fiction/books/goddess/the-real-life-of-julie-daubigny/.

Koestenbaum, Wayne. Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality And The Mystery Of Desire. Reprint edition. London: Da Capo Press, 2001.

“Maupin, d’Aubigny (c. 1670–1707) | Encyclopedia.Com.” Accessed January 9, 2023. https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/maupin-daubigny-c-1670-1707.

Tucker, Holly. City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris. Reprint edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Vitale, Alex S. The End of Policing. Updated edition. New York: Verso, 2021.

Westby, Alan. “Julie d’Aubigny: La Maupin and Early French Opera.” The Los Angeles Public Library, June 28, 2017. https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/julie-daubigny-la-maupin-and-early-french-opera.

Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner. Image via.