Singing Sappho : improvisation and authority in nineteenth-century Italian opera / Melina Esse.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Esse, Melina, author.

Series:

Opera lab.

Chicago scholarship online.

Opera lab

Chicago scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sappho--Influence.

Sappho.

Opera--Italy--19th century.

Opera.

Opera--Greek influences.

Vocal improvisation (Music)--Italy--History--19th century.

Vocal improvisation (Music).

Women singers--Italy.

Women singers.

Women singers--France.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (224 p.) : 15 halftones, 38 line drawings

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

From the theatrical stage to the literary salon, the figure of Sappho - the ancient poet and inspiring icon of feminine creativity - played a major role in the intertwining histories of improvisation, text, and performance throughout the 19th century. Exploring the connections between operatic and poetic improvisation in Italy and beyond, 'Singing Sappho' combines earwitness accounts of famous female improviser-virtuosi with erudite analysis of musical and literary practices. Melina Esse demonstrates that performance played a much larger role in conceptions of musical authorship than previously recognised, arguing that discourses of spontaneity - specifically those surrounding the improvvisatrice, or female poetic improviser - were paradoxically used to carve out a new authority for opera composers just as improvisation itself was falling into decline.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

1. History’s Muse: The Spectacle of Poetic Improvisation

2. Corinna’s Crown: Improvisation and Authority in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims

3. Divinely Inspired: Incantation and the Making of Melody in Bellini’s Norma

4. Saffo’s Lyre: Improvising Operatic Authorship

5. A Sapphic Orpheus: Pauline Viardot and the Sexual Politics of Operatic Collaboration

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on December 8, 2021).

ISBN:

0-226-74180-X

OCLC:

1245420488