The biographical facts about either woman's sexuality remain speculative; what is significant, however, is the role these women played in reaching a vast female audience through their homoerotically-charged artistry.

Sponsor Message.

Lesbian diva-worship has generally focused on certain singers who have specialized in heroic or gender-bending roles, generally mezzo-sopranos or, in some cases, dramatic sopranos. As such, more recent operatic divas who have had significant lesbian cult followings include such mezzo-sopranos as Brigitte Fassbaender (b. 1939) and Tatiana Troyanos (1938-1993) and dramatic soprano Jessye Norman (b. 1945).

Gay Male Diva Worship

It is perhaps too broad a generalization to claim without reservation that while lesbian diva worship is based on desire, gay male diva worship is based on identification. In queer culture, the lines between identification and desire are frequently blurred; critic Stacey DíErasmo, in discussing Dusty Springfield, has observed that the diva almost inevitably raises "that quintessentially queer question: do you want to be her or have her?"

Be that as it may, gay male diva worship, in contrast to the lesbian variety, has traditionally centered on more vulnerable figures, those who might well be described as "tragedy queens." A case in point is the continued gay male adulation paid to the memory of Maria Callas (1923-1977), known to her fans as la Divina.

Surely one of the most exciting singing actresses of the twentieth century, Callas specialized in playing the ill-fated and often emotionally fragile heroines of Italian opera who suffer and die for love. This tragic quality carried over into her turbulent personal life as well, in her well-publicized romantic involvements, her heartbreaks, and, ultimately, her loss of her vocal powers.

As Wayne Koestenbaum has explained, this devotion to Callas involves a highly complex system of psychic associations, arising from the conditions informing gay life, particularly social marginalization. Further, as Richard Dyer suggests, minoritized groups tend to exhibit a particularly intense need for cult icons with whom to identify as a response to and enactment of their exclusion from the mainstream.

Thus, as Callas was associated with presumably elitist high culture (and a controversial figure even within that rarified realm), devotion to her would mark her fans as different from the ordinary (that is, heterosexual) cultural consumer.

A more simple explanation, though, is that gay and lesbian audiences, given their all-too-frequent rejection by society, are drawn to divas because these extraordinary, often larger-than-life figures perform a cathartic function by embodying, whether in their performances or in their own lives, all the heartache, grief, humiliation, and suffering that almost inevitably play a large role in queer life.

Expansion of the Cult of the Diva

Accordingly, the cult of the diva, particularly in post World War II culture, has expanded beyond the realm of opera into popular music as well. Holliday, Garland, and Springfield, for example, all evoked tremendous emotional responses through their performances, suffered publicly from overwhelming personal disaster and substance abuse, and died prematurely--and all had significant gay followings. Springfield, who was herself a lesbian, had a significant lesbian following as well.

As previously suggested, the title diva has lost much of its significance in recent years, thanks in great part to the mass media. Attitude or emotionality rather than virtuosity would seem to be the deciding criteria. Thus numerous young female pop singers appropriate the term for themselves. Indeed, it would seem that one need not even be female or, for that matter, a singer in order to call oneself a diva.

This is not to say that there are no longer divas deserving that distinction. A short list of grand divas among contemporary opera singers would surely include Renée Fleming, Deborah Voight, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Kathleen Battle, Susan Graham, and Jane Eaglen. And there are great living pop divas as well, including Barbra Streissand, Dolly Parton, Bette Midler, Cher, Celine Dion, and Madonna, many of whom have considerable queer followings. For as long as we remain an excluded group, we will need the diva, the cathartic figure who embodies and expresses our joys and sorrows.

Male singers who were castrated before they reached puberty, castrati reached the height of their popularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; although not necessarily homosexual, they occupy a "queer space" in cultural history.

No popular art form is more closely identified with gay culture than disco and dance music.

Female impersonation need say nothing about sexual identity, but it has for a long time been almost an institutionalized aspect of gay male culture.

Classical music is an important component of Western culture to which glbt people have contributed significantly.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons have had tremendous influence on popular music, though some musical genres have been more receptive to a homosexual presence than others.

Opera, an eclectic synthesis of voice, drama, music, costume, visual arts and spectacle, has played an integral role in queer culture since its development in seventeenth century Venice.

One of America's premier literary artists in the earlier twentieth century, Willa Cather reflected her own lesbianism in the creation of strong women characters and in the exploration of male homosexuality.

The fragile persona and emotion-packed voice of actress and singer Judy Garland are powerfully linked to gay culture and identity; she appealed especially to gay men, but also to lesbians.

Now widely acclaimed as one of the greatest voices of popular music, British rock star of the 1960s Dusty Springfield has long been a lesbian icon.

Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.