Beyond the Diva: Female Presences in Romantic Musical Theatre

This volume brings together the outcomes of, and takes its title from, the study day held on 2 May 2019 through the collaboration between the Conservatory and the University of Bari, under the patronage of the Italian Society of Musicology, with the aim of promoting knowledge and awareness of the role and significance of the female figures who animated the Romantic musical scene, a little-known heritage still excluded from institutional study programmes today. Its primary purpose is to show how gender dynamics influenced compositional choices, both by men and by women; to what extent women shaped certain channels of major patronage; and what place women composers found within them. From this perspective derives the sociological and anthropological approach that inspired the inquiry and informs the reflections developed in the ten essays collected here. The broader chronological span recently assigned by historiography to “Romanticism” led the editors to open the collection with composers contemporary with Mozart and to close it with the activity of Clara Kathleen Rogers in the early twentieth century. Equally broad is the notion of “musical theatre” adopted here, which makes it possible to trace intersections with the worlds of dance and acting, in keeping with that syncretism of the arts that lay at the heart of Romantic poetics.

Contents:

• Presentation
• Beyond the Diva: Female Presences in Romantic Musical Theatre, programme of the study day
• Lorenzo Mattei, Bridled Amazons: Reflections on the Role of Women Opera Composers between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
• Franca Dellarosa, Soundscapes. Time, Memory, and Performance: the Case of Sarah Siddons
• Attilio Cantore, Isabella Colbran as Performer and Composer
• Bianca Maria Antolini, Carolina Ungher-Sabatier: Prima Donna, Teacher, Salonnière, Composer
• Pinuccia Carrer, Enrichetta Polastri in Mondolfo: From Dancer to Benefactress
• Paola Ciarlantini, Clara Novello, an Intrepid Prima Donna between London and Fermo
• Mariacarla De Giorgi, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, “prêtresse, sibylle et initiatrice”: the Aesthetics of Singing from Consuelo to Orfeo
• Orietta Caianiello, Marietta Piccolomini, the “pet child” of Verdi’s theatre
• Cristina Scuderi, Between Gioconda and Desdemona: Romilda Pantaleoni in the La Scala Years
• Angela Annese, The Two Lives of Clara Kathleen Rogers: Singer, Teacher, Composer
• Index of Names

Download the index, presentation, and paratexts of the publication.