Gender aspects of musical performance: conductor, female conductor, woman conductor

The article is devoted to the history of opera and symphonic conducting, considered through the prism of correlation of professionalism and gender. The facts of women’s mastering the conductor's profession in the second half of XIX - the first half of XX centuries (J. Aman-Weinlich, C. Gonzaga, E. Leginska, F. Petrides, A. Brico, F. Belinfante, V. Kapralova) are presented, which are considered as the evidence of gradual sociocultural changes, caused by the feminism processes in USA and Western Europe. The study highlights the activities of the first domestic female conductors (E. Slavinskaya, O. Berg, V. Dudarova, M. Heifetz), possible due to the drastic political, economic and cultural reforms in the USSR. The author identifies the problem of “female conducting” connected with socio-political, psychological, and socio-cultural patriarchal traditions as a manifestation of gender asymmetry in the sphere of academic conducting.