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The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century
Female characters assumed increasing prominence in the narratives of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera. And for contemporary audiences, many of these characters—and the celebrated women who played them—still define opera at its finest and most searingly affective, even if storylines leave them swooning and faded by the end of the drama. The presence and representation of women in opera has been addressed in a range of recent studies that offer valuable insights into the operatic stage as cultural space, focusing a critical lens at the text and the position and signification of female characters. Moving that lens onto the historical, The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century sheds light on the singers who created and inhabited these roles, the flesh-and-blood women who embodied these fabled "doomed women" onstage before an audience.

Editors Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss lead a cast of renowned contributors in an impressive display of current approaches to the lives, careers, and performances of female opera singers. Essential theoretical perspectives reflect several broad themes woven through the volume-cultures of celebrity surrounding the female singer; the emergence of the quasi-mythical figure of the diva; explorations of the intricate and sundry arts associated with the prima donna, and with her representation in other media; and the diversity and complexity of contemporary responses to her. The prima donna influenced compositional practices, determined musical and dramatic interpretation, and affected management decisions about the running of the opera house, content of the season, and employment of other artists—a clear demonstration that her position as "first woman" extended well beyond the boards of the operatic stage itself.

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century is an important addition to the collections of students and researchers in opera studies, nineteenth-century music, performance and gender/sexuality studies, and cultural studies, as well as to the shelves of opera singers and enthusiasts.
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The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century
Female characters assumed increasing prominence in the narratives of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera. And for contemporary audiences, many of these characters—and the celebrated women who played them—still define opera at its finest and most searingly affective, even if storylines leave them swooning and faded by the end of the drama. The presence and representation of women in opera has been addressed in a range of recent studies that offer valuable insights into the operatic stage as cultural space, focusing a critical lens at the text and the position and signification of female characters. Moving that lens onto the historical, The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century sheds light on the singers who created and inhabited these roles, the flesh-and-blood women who embodied these fabled "doomed women" onstage before an audience.

Editors Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss lead a cast of renowned contributors in an impressive display of current approaches to the lives, careers, and performances of female opera singers. Essential theoretical perspectives reflect several broad themes woven through the volume-cultures of celebrity surrounding the female singer; the emergence of the quasi-mythical figure of the diva; explorations of the intricate and sundry arts associated with the prima donna, and with her representation in other media; and the diversity and complexity of contemporary responses to her. The prima donna influenced compositional practices, determined musical and dramatic interpretation, and affected management decisions about the running of the opera house, content of the season, and employment of other artists—a clear demonstration that her position as "first woman" extended well beyond the boards of the operatic stage itself.

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century is an important addition to the collections of students and researchers in opera studies, nineteenth-century music, performance and gender/sexuality studies, and cultural studies, as well as to the shelves of opera singers and enthusiasts.
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The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century

Overview

Female characters assumed increasing prominence in the narratives of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera. And for contemporary audiences, many of these characters—and the celebrated women who played them—still define opera at its finest and most searingly affective, even if storylines leave them swooning and faded by the end of the drama. The presence and representation of women in opera has been addressed in a range of recent studies that offer valuable insights into the operatic stage as cultural space, focusing a critical lens at the text and the position and signification of female characters. Moving that lens onto the historical, The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century sheds light on the singers who created and inhabited these roles, the flesh-and-blood women who embodied these fabled "doomed women" onstage before an audience.

Editors Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss lead a cast of renowned contributors in an impressive display of current approaches to the lives, careers, and performances of female opera singers. Essential theoretical perspectives reflect several broad themes woven through the volume-cultures of celebrity surrounding the female singer; the emergence of the quasi-mythical figure of the diva; explorations of the intricate and sundry arts associated with the prima donna, and with her representation in other media; and the diversity and complexity of contemporary responses to her. The prima donna influenced compositional practices, determined musical and dramatic interpretation, and affected management decisions about the running of the opera house, content of the season, and employment of other artists—a clear demonstration that her position as "first woman" extended well beyond the boards of the operatic stage itself.

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century is an important addition to the collections of students and researchers in opera studies, nineteenth-century music, performance and gender/sexuality studies, and cultural studies, as well as to the shelves of opera singers and enthusiasts.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780195365887
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 06/29/2012
Pages: 416
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Rachel Cowgill is Professor of Music at Cardiff University, and editor of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association. Her research encompasses British music and musical cultures, Italian opera, Mozart reception, and gender and sexuality, and has appeared in Cambridge Opera Journal, JRMA, Early Music, Musical Times, and collections from Ashgate, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Oxford University Press, and Princeton University Press. Rachel co-edited Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music (Ashgate, 2006), Music in the British Provinces, 1690-1914 (Ashgate, 2007), and Art and Ideology in European Opera (Boydell & Brewer, 2010).

Hilary Poriss is Associate Professor at Northeastern University, Boston. Her research interests focus on Italian opera, performance practice, diva culture, and the aesthetics of nineteenth-century musical culture. She is the author of Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford University Press, 2009); and co-editor, with Roberta Montemorra Marvin of Fashions and Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (Cambridge University Press, 2010). She has published articles and reviews in 19th-Century Music, Cambridge Opera Journal, Verdi Forum, and Nineteenth-Century Music Review.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss

PART ONE: PROMOTION AND IMAGE-MAKING

Chapter 1. Divas and Sonnets: Poetry for Female Singers in Teatri arti e letteratura
Francesco Izzo

Chapter 2. Idealizing the Prima Donna in Mid-Victorian London
Roberta Montemorra Marvin

Chapter 3. Prima Donnas and the Performance of Altruism
Hilary Poriss

Chapter 4. Staging Scandal with Salome and Elektra
Joy H. Calico

Chapter 5. Screening the Diva
Mary Simonson

Chapter 6. The Prima Donna's Art of Politics
James R. Currie

INTERLUDE 1: The Prima Donna Creates
Julian Rushton

PART TWO: FANTASY AND REPRESENTATION

Chapter 7. Gautier's "Diva": The First French Use of the Word
James Q. Davies

Chapter 8. Artistic Experiment and the Reevaluation of the Prima Donna in George Moore's Evelyn Innes
Grace Kehler

Chapter 9. Ars moriendi: Reflections on the Death of Mimi
Helen Greenwald

Chapter 10. Lakmé's Echoing Jewels
Gurminder Kaur Bhogal

INTERLUDE 2: Breath's End: Opera and Mortality
Terry Castle

PART THREE: CULTURES OF CELEBRITY

Chapter 11. "Attitudes with a Shawl": Performance, Femininity, and Spectatorship at the Italian Opera in Early Nineteenth-Century London
Rachel Cowgill

Chapter 12. From Diva to Drama Queen
Tracy C. Davis

Chapter 13. The Prima Donna as Opera Impresario: Emma Carelli and the Teatro Costanzi, 1911-1926
Susan Rutherford

Chapter 14. "In Imitation of My Negro Mammy": Alma Gluck and the American Prima Donna
Susan C. Cook

Chapter 15. "The Finest Voice of the Century": Clara Butt and Other Concert-Hall and Drawing-Room Singers of Fin-de-siècle Britain
Sophie Fuller

Chapter 16. Galli-Curci Comes to Town: The Prima Donna's Presence in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Alexandra Wilson

Index
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