Sorry, Tara Erraught, but the age of the fat lady singing is over

London’s opera critics have been roundly condemned for suggesting that a female singer’s personal appearance could make her unsuitable for a role. The singer in question is Tara Erraught, a young Irish mezzo-soprano based in Germany, who has just made her British debut in the new Glyndebourne production of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. She takes the part of Octavian, who, although always played by a woman, is supposed in the plot to be an irresistibly attractive young man. The critics all admired Erraught’s voice, but took the view that she was too stocky, dumpy, chubby and unsightly (to use four of their adjectives) to be even remotely plausible as an object of sexual desire.

Uproar followed, with other opera singers leaping to her defence. They accused the critics of cruelty to a vulnerable young woman at the start of her career and of regarding her appearance as more important than her voice.