Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteenth Century (Cambridge Studies in Opera)

Karen Henson
Cambridge University Press, 1/15/2015
EAN 9781107004269, ISBN10: 1107004268

Hardcover, 282 pages, 24.7 x 17.4 x 1.7 cm
Language: English

Opera Acts explores a wealth of new historical material about singers in the late nineteenth century and challenges the idea that this was a period of decline for the opera singer. In detailed case studies of four figures - the late Verdi baritone Victor Maurel; Bizet's first Carmen, Célestine Galli-Marié; Massenet's muse of the 1880s and 1890s, Sibyl Sanderson; and the early Wagner star Jean de Reszke - Karen Henson argues that singers in the late nineteenth century continued to be important, but in ways that were not conventionally 'vocal'. Instead they enjoyed a freedom and creativity based on their ability to express text, act and communicate physically, and exploit the era's media. By these and other means, singers played a crucial role in the creation of opera up to the end of the nineteenth century.

Introduction
on not singing and singing physiognomically
1. Verdi, Victor Maurel, and the operatic interpreter
2. Real mezzo
Célestine Galli-Marié as Carmen
3. Photographic diva
Massenet, Sibyl Sanderson, and the soprano as spectacle
4. Jean de Reszke, the 'problem' of the tenor, and early international Wagner performance
Supporting cast.