The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century

The female singers who graced the nineteenth-century operatic stage were among the most celebrated women of their era, but they were also among the most transgressive. This book explores the means by which this preeminence was negotiated, traversing the musical, the dramatic, and the visual, while addressing more recognizably modern concerns, such as career management, literary representation, and image manipulation. A key theme is the emergence of the diva archetype over the course of the century—a new ideological discourse through which the extremes of operatic female vocality were reinterpreted. Chapters approach the prima donna from the perspectives of cultural history, musicology, gender/sexuality studies, theater and literature studies, and critical theory.

Contributors:
Gurminder Kaur Bhogal is Assistant Professor of Music at Wellesley College.; Joy H. Calico is Associate Professor of Musicology at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, where she teaches courses on music since 1800 and on opera.; Terry Castle teaches at Stanford University, where she is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities.; Susan C. Cook is Professor of Music and the Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.; Rachel Cowgill is Professor in the School of Music at Cardiff University.; James Currie is Assistant Professor of Music History in the Department of Music at the University of Buffalo (State University of New York).; James Q. Davies is an Assistant Professor of Music at University of California, Berkeley.; Tracy C. Davis, Barber Professor of the Performing Arts at Northwestern University.; Sophie Fuller is a freelance musicologist.; Helen Greenwald has taught at the New England Conservatory since 1991 and was Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Chicago, winter-spring 2008.; Francesco Izzo is Lecturer in Music at the University of Southampton, and has also taught at New York University, East Carolina University, and the University of Chicago.; Grace Kehler is an Associate Professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada).; Roberta Montemorra Marvin is a Research Fellow at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at The University of Iowa, where she is also Director of the Institute for Italian Opera Studies and Associate Professor.; Hilary Poriss is Associate Professor of Music attern Northeastern University.; Julian Rushton retired from the West Riding Chair of Music at the University of Leeds in 2002.; Susan Rutherford is Senior Lecturer in Performance Studies at the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, University of Manchester.; Mary Simonson teaches at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and completed her doctorate at the University of Virginia in 2007.; Alexandra Wilson is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at Oxford Brookes University.