Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Esse, Melina

Publication

• Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

199 pages : illustrations, music; 24 cm.

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 nineteenth 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. Esse demonstrates that performance played a much larger role in conceptions of musical authorship than previously recognized, 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"--

Series Statement

Opera lab : explorations in history, technology, and performance

Uniform Title

Opera lab.

Subject

• Sappho > Influence
• Sappho
• 1800-1899
• Opera > Italy > 19th century
• Opera > Greek influences
• Vocal improvisation (Music) > Italy > Philosophy > History > 19th century
• Women singers > Italy
• Women singers > France
• Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
• Opera
• Women singers
• France
• Italy

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [187]-195) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- History's muse : the spectacle of poetic improvisation -- Corinna's crown : improvisation and authority in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims -- Divinely inspired : incantation and the making of melody in Bellini's Norma -- Saffo's lyre : improvising operatic authorship -- A Sapphic Orpheus : Pauline Viardot and the sexual politics of opera collaboration.

Call Number

JME 21-320

ISBN

• 9780226741772
• 022674177X

LCCN

2020027458

OCLC

1143629372

Author

Esse, Melina, author.

Title

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

Publisher

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Opera lab : explorations in history, technology, and performance

Opera lab.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [187]-195) and index.

Chronological Term

1800-1899

Research Call Number

JME 21-320