Description
Book SynopsisThe Arts of the Prima Donna assembles a star-studded yet well-balanced cast of contributors, whose essays combine theoretical approaches to text and narrative, and current theory on gender, performativity, and the commodification of the female body, with the growing understanding of the lives, careers, and performances of the female opera singer.
Trade ReviewThe essays offer a rich variety of approaches to the prima donna, and the quality of scholarship and writing is high. Together they reveal the contradictory views of the prima donna in different times and places, the ideologies of gender that shaped perception, and the challenges these singers presented to traditional male/female power dynamics. * Sarah Hibberd, Studies in Theatre and Performance *
this volume makes a unique contribution to the literature ... Highly recommended * R. Pitts, CHOICE *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 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. Lakme'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-siecle Britain ; Sophie Fuller ; Chapter 16. Galli-Curci Comes to Town: The Prima Donna's Presence in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ; Alexandra Wilson ; Index
