An Early History of Exploitation in Ballet, Opera, Theatre, and Orchestras

The Abonnés’ Balcony

In 19th century Paris, the Palais Garnier built a special tier where wealthy men could sit not to admire the technical artistry of the ballet, but to browse. Ballet wasn’t just an artform. It was a spectacle built for male appetite. From their seats above the stage, men watched girls as young as 14 dance beneath them, appraised not just for their movement, but for their availability. These men, known as abonnés—elite season ticket holders who paid for exclusive access to the Paris Opera—were not just patrons of the arts. They were patrons of the dancers themselves. Below, behind the heavy velvet curtains and golden filigree, managers acted as intermediaries, arranging introductions and negotiations. The Green Room of the Paris Opera became a de facto marketplace where men could buy sexual favors, where dancers were inspected and claimed. Sponsorship was a euphemism. Consent was a footnote. Ballet was performance, yes, but it was also currency. In the world of ballet, beauty and sexual exploitation have always shared a stage. And this exploitation was no hidden scandal. It was the norm. In an era when modest dress was the social norm for women, ballet dancers stood apart in far more revealing attire. And when architect Charles Garnier designed the Paris Opera in the 1860s, he made sure the elite had their own entrance. Season ticket holders were granted access to a private doorway that led them not only to their seats, but to power. Tucked just behind the stage was the foyer de la danse. But this opulent space wasn’t built with just dancers in mind. It functioned more like a hunting ground—a social club for wealthy male patrons who came not just to admire, but to negotiate access. The abonnés held power not only over the dancers’ careers but over their safety. Dancers were trapped between their need to survive and the demands of the men who paid to see them. It was hunger and often financial strain that pulled them into dance. And it was power that kept them pliant. Mentorship was a myth. Behind it lurked the same cold trade: access for obedience. Safety was never part of the contract. And the world around them not only knew, it insisted on the silence.

The Sexual Exploitation of Women in Opera and Theatre

The sexual exploitation of women wasn’t limited to ballet. Opera houses carried their own legacy of violence and silence. Pinpointing the absolute earliest report of sexual misconduct in opera is nearly impossible, due to the art form’s centuries-long history and a tradition of hiding abuse beneath the grandeur of storytelling. But what is documented tells its own story through the music itself.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni, first performed in 1787, features a libertine nobleman whose conquests and violations are central to the plot—a reflection of the era’s droit du seigneur mythology. Benjamin Britten’s 1946 opera The Rape of Lucretia retells the story of a Roman noblewoman who is raped and later dies by suicide. These operas do not just depict violence—they normalize it, often without consequence for the aggressor. Modern productions have begun to highlight these themes more explicitly, but the history is baked in.

Theatre acting, too, has long been a stage for power imbalance. In Ancient Rome, actresses held low social status and were widely subjected to abuse. Cicero once referenced the mistreatment of actresses as a “well-established tradition.” During the Elizabethan era, child actors—often abducted and forced into performance—were vulnerable to sexual exploitation in disturbingly sexualized contexts. Fast forward to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and we find the “casting couch” phenomenon in full force, with actresses pressured into sexual favors for roles. One infamous case involved silent film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (a mentor of Charlie Chaplin), accused of raping actress Virginia Rappe in 1921, leading to her death. He was the highest paid actor in Hollywood at the time.

Whether it was an opera’s librettist, a ballet director, or a studio mogul, the script was always the same: power, silence, and sexual exploitation.

The Exclusion of Women in Orchestras

Across the street, in the revered halls of the symphony, a different kind of silence reigned. The 19th century orchestra was predominently white men, all control, and all ritual. A male conductor didn’t just lead the music, he was God. Authority trickled downward. Questions did not.

To be clear, the exclusion of women from orchestras in the 19th century wasn’t total, but it was systematic. Women’s musical talent was acknowledged in theory, yet societal conventions often barred them from pursuing professional careers, especially in the orchestral world. Gender norms confined women to the domestic sphere, discouraging public performance and restricting access to formal training in orchestral composition or instrumentation. Certain instruments were considered “too masculine,” and even among those women were allowed to study, biases ran deep. Sir Henry Wood, one of Britain’s most prominent conductors, famously expressed that some instruments were more appropriate for women than others, reinforcing stereotypes rather than dismantling them.

While some conservatories began admitting women in the late 19th century, their presence in professional orchestras remained controversial. The Vienna Philharmonic didn’t admit women as full members until 1997, and only after facing public pressure and financial threats. Earlier efforts to challenge this exclusion came through women-led ensembles like the Vienna Ladies Orchestra (founded in 1867) and the Boston Fadette Orchestra (active from 1888 to 1920), which gave women the rare chance to perform, tour, and earn a living through music. These orchestras weren’t just artistic collectives. They were acts of resistance.

Even when some orchestras began to relent, progress was painfully slow. In 1913, the Queen’s Hall Orchestra in London hired six female violinists, one of the first such moves by a major ensemble. In the United States, a few women were hired by orchestras like the Detroit Symphony by 1918. Harpist Edna Phillips broke another barrier in 1930 by joining the Philadelphia Orchestra, becoming the first woman in a major American orchestra. But these gains remained isolated. The broader gender disparity persisted well into the 20th century. Orchestras remained bastions of white masculine authority, slow to change and reluctant to confront the bias embedded in their traditions.

While one art form built a system that made women currency, the other built a system that made them practically disappear; Ballet exploited the body, the orchestra erased it, opera dramatized it, and theater recycled it. Four stages. Same power. To believe these institutions were innocent is to mistake invisibility for integrity. It’s to believe that the absence of noise means the absence of harm.

What History Doesn’t Record

It wasn't until the mid 20th century when the terms sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, sexism, misogyny, or gender discrimination and bias became valid terms depicting gendered harm. Therefore, you have to dig to find the first cracks in the concert hall walls, because they didn’t keep records of who was hurt in the early 19th century. They didn’t take statements or file reports. They didn’t want to know or even acknowlege the harm being done to women back then. In the 1960s, there were whispers about James Levine. They grew into thunder years later, when investigations exposed decades of abuse involving young male artists. He was finally fired, but only after the damage had festered for generations. In 1985, Lara St John was a child prodigy, just 14, when she was groomed and sexually abused by her teacher at the Curtis Institute. The school buried the truth. For decades. Until survivors pushed the truth into the light. Between 1985 and 2010, women came forward about Charles Dutoit. Another revered name. Another open secret. In 1996, the Cleveland Orchestra’s concertmaster, William Preucil, faced misconduct allegations. But he remained in his role for years. Institutions circled the wagons. Survivors were left alone. These were not men on the margins, they were giants. And the places that crowned them stood by them. Sadly, the popular practice of music institutions silencing women who speak out about gendered harm still exists in the modern day 21st century.

When Silence Becomes a Strategy

So why did ballet’s sexual exploitation become spectacle in the 19th century while orchestras cloaked theirs in velvet hush? Because the world tolerates violence against women when it comes with music and pearls. Because we only call it a scandal when it breaks the illusion. Ballet was a performance of femininity. So when the abuse happened, it was expected. Or worse, admired. Orchestras, on the other hand, carried the banner of refinement. So when the abuse happened, it was unthinkable. Until it wasn't. That’s the thing about silence. It can sound like discipline. Until it becomes evidence.

There’s a whole archive of pain we’ll never read. Women who didn’t speak because no one asked. Students who didn’t report because there was no one to tell. Definitions of abuse that didn’t exist yet. Boundaries that institutions refused to draw. The fact that it took decades for these stories to surface doesn’t mean they weren’t happening. It means the world was structured not to see them.

Today it’s easy to point to individuals: the predators, the headlines, the names. But systems don’t survive on monsters. They survive on everyone who looks away....Directors, chairs, trustees, boards. They knew enough. They always do. But reputation is more important than reckoning; and a man's career or legacy is more important than accountability for the harm being done. When institutions tell survivors to stay silent for the good of the art, they’re not protecting the art. They’re protecting the abuser. None of this can be separated from the broader structures of patriarchy and white supremacy that shaped these institutions from the start. Orchestras, ballet, opera, and theater were built as citadels of white European cultural dominance—elevating white male genius while silencing, objectifying, or excluding everyone else. Power wasn’t just gendered. It was racialized too. The voices of women of color, particularly Black and Indigenous women, were not only ignored but systematically erased from the historical records as well. To this day, whiteness and maleness continue to define who gets believed, who gets protected, and who gets to speak without retribution. These legacies are not ghosts...they are blueprints still embedded in the foundations of society.

Formal Recognition VS. PR Issues

For centuries, the performance world normalized and concealed sexual exploitation. In the U.S., formal recognition came slowly through civil rights law. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation, and in 1980, the EEOC formally defined sexual harassment as illegal discrimination. In 1986, the Supreme Court recognized hostile work environments in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson.

Despite legal framework gains, cultural institutions have still lagged behind; treating misconduct as a PR issue, not a systemic failure. Until that changes, legal progress alone won’t be enough. Now the curtain is lifting (but only partially) for every woman who comes forward, there are still a hundred in the shadows. For every headline, there’s a whisper. For every man removed, there’s another collecting accolades. And still, something is changing. The myth of male gods and genius is losing its teeth. Survivors are finding each other and women are speaking out despite the pushback. This was never just about ballet. Or orchestras. Or operas. Or stages. This was about what happens when "high art" is built on the backs of the unheard. And what we must now decide is simple: Do we keep applauding, or do we finally rewrite the score?

(c) Katie A. Berglof, 2025