Could somebody explain to me what the lip-synching drag queen was all about? I haven't finished this movie yet (I'm very excited about it, though), but I did want to post and ask this question to see if someone could explain the (I assume) historical (?) reasoning behind the lip-synching man in drag who was in the opera with Caruso...
shareI have a possible answer. Wathcing the comments by Herzog when the queen appears he says "Back there appears Sarah Barnard, a theater actress etc played here by a transvestite etc. I suppose Sarah Barnard by the time she was an actress and not an opera singer had to be doubled by a real opera singer, who could be seen by the audience and not just be a kind of prompter. The singer probably could not act because she is fat and the female main figures in operas are in majority beautiful and thin. Now, the reason why a transvestite plays Sarah Barnard is uknown - just a capriccio of Herzog. The only thing he says about is that they had to record the opera scene because one of the singers refused to go to Manaos and play the opera while shooting because he heard that Sarah Barnard would be played by a transvestite.
shareAnd watching further the comments, yes, Sarah Barnard could not sing, so she had to be doubled by a singer.
shareThank you for the answer, PandaHouparon!
I had no idea that was supposed to be Sarah Bernhardt... and I'd forgotten that she had some kind of "career" in the opera world.
I suppose the idea in casting a transvestite as Sarah Bernhardt was Herzog's idea of "commenting" upon Ms. Bernhardt's style of acting.