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

Author
Esse, Melina [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
Description
1 online resource (224 p.) : 15 halftones, 38 line drawings

Details

Subject(s)
Series
Summary note
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.
Notes
Also issued in print: 2021.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Target audience
Specialized.
Source of description
Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on December 8, 2021).
Language note
In English.
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
ISBN
0-226-74180-X
OCLC
1245420488
Doi
  • 10.7208/9780226741802
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