Pub Date : 2024-02-12DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000228
Barbara Gentili
The story of soprano and opera impresaria Emma Carelli (1877–1928) has often been recounted as the tale of a successful prima donna who rather abruptly turned to opera management in order to assist her husband, Walter Mocchi, in his entrepreneurial ventures. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished primary sources – including Carelli's scrapbooks, critics’ reviews and a set of letters she wrote to the impresario, critic and agent Adolfo Re Riccardi – my article demonstrates that Carelli's choice was entirely self-motivated and the product of her unique set of individual attributes. The significance of Carelli's journey can best be understood by situating the singer and impresaria within her contemporary social landscape and by examining her personal story through the lens of women's history. Such a perspective unveils the strategies that she adopted to enact a stirring ideal of femininity in opposition to the values of the liberal state in early twentieth-century Italy.
女高音歌唱家、歌剧表演艺术家埃玛-卡雷利（1877-1928 年）的故事经常被描述为一个成功的首席女高音歌唱家为了协助丈夫沃尔特-莫奇（Walter Mocchi）创业而突然转向歌剧管理的故事。我的文章利用大量未公开的原始资料--包括卡雷利的剪贴簿、评论家的评论以及她写给剧作家、评论家兼经纪人阿道夫-雷-里卡尔迪（Adolfo Re Riccardi）的一系列信件--证明卡雷利的选择完全是出于自我动机，是她独特个人特质的产物。通过将这位歌手和表演艺术家置于她所处的当代社会环境中，并通过妇女历史的视角来审视她的个人故事，可以更好地理解卡瑞丽的心路历程的意义。这种视角揭示了她所采取的策略，即在二十世纪初的意大利，她为实现女性的动人理想而采取的与自由主义国家价值观相对立的策略。
{"title":"A Project of Her Own: Emma Carelli's Enactment of Femininity in Early Twentieth-Century Italy","authors":"Barbara Gentili","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000228","url":null,"abstract":"The story of soprano and opera impresaria Emma Carelli (1877–1928) has often been recounted as the tale of a successful prima donna who rather abruptly turned to opera management in order to assist her husband, Walter Mocchi, in his entrepreneurial ventures. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished primary sources – including Carelli's scrapbooks, critics’ reviews and a set of letters she wrote to the impresario, critic and agent Adolfo Re Riccardi – my article demonstrates that Carelli's choice was entirely self-motivated and the product of her unique set of individual attributes. The significance of Carelli's journey can best be understood by situating the singer and impresaria within her contemporary social landscape and by examining her personal story through the lens of women's history. Such a perspective unveils the strategies that she adopted to enact a stirring ideal of femininity in opposition to the values of the liberal state in early twentieth-century Italy.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139757439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000204
{"title":"OPR volume 35 issue 3 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000204","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"b1 - b2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139304669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000198
{"title":"OPR volume 35 issue 3 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000198","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"13 1","pages":"f1 - f2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139293786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-26DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000150
Barry Wiener
Abstract The operas of Per Nørgård (b. 1932) embody a search for hidden wisdom and spiritual transcendence characteristic of artists who came to maturity during the 1960s. Gilgamesh (1972) and Nuit des hommes (1996) can be perceived as mirror images that embody visions of universal harmony and discord, and of spiritual wholeness and disintegration. This article analyses Nørgård's use of mythic paradigms and Jungian archetypes to structure the operas. It also examines Nørgård's use of dialectical polarities, including creation and death, the human and the divine, and self and others. In particular, it discusses two concepts derived from the work of Joseph Campbell, the ‘hero's journey’ and the ‘cosmogonic cycle’, linking them to Jung's theory of individuation. While Gilgamesh embodies a successful realisation of the hero's journey, the characters in Nuit des hommes become directionless wayfarers in a hostile world.
Per n ø rg德(1932年)的歌剧体现了60年代成熟艺术家对隐藏智慧和精神超越的追求。《吉尔伽美什》(1972)和《夜之人》(1996)可以被看作是镜像，体现了普遍和谐与不和谐、精神完整与解体的愿景。本文分析了诺格拉德运用神话范式和荣格原型来构建歌剧。它还考察了nø rg德对辩证两极的运用，包括创造与死亡、人与神、自我与他人。特别地，它讨论了源自约瑟夫·坎贝尔作品的两个概念，“英雄之旅”和“宇宙循环”，将它们与荣格的个性化理论联系起来。吉尔伽美什成功地实现了主人公的旅程，而《夜之家》中的人物则成为了一个充满敌意的世界中迷失方向的旅行者。
{"title":"Per Nørgård's Tragic Vision: A Comparison of <i>Gilgamesh</i> (1972) and <i>Nuit des hommes</i> (1996)","authors":"Barry Wiener","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000150","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The operas of Per Nørgård (b. 1932) embody a search for hidden wisdom and spiritual transcendence characteristic of artists who came to maturity during the 1960s. Gilgamesh (1972) and Nuit des hommes (1996) can be perceived as mirror images that embody visions of universal harmony and discord, and of spiritual wholeness and disintegration. This article analyses Nørgård's use of mythic paradigms and Jungian archetypes to structure the operas. It also examines Nørgård's use of dialectical polarities, including creation and death, the human and the divine, and self and others. In particular, it discusses two concepts derived from the work of Joseph Campbell, the ‘hero's journey’ and the ‘cosmogonic cycle’, linking them to Jung's theory of individuation. While Gilgamesh embodies a successful realisation of the hero's journey, the characters in Nuit des hommes become directionless wayfarers in a hostile world.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"5 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134909280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-16DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000101
Stephen Armstrong
Abstract This article reconsiders two of Rossini's exoticist farces, L'italiana in Algeri (1813) and Il turco in Italia (1814), in the light of recent theoretical studies in tourism. These operas appeared at the juncture between the eighteenth-century Grand Tour and nineteenth-century mass tourism, and they became implicated in multiple layers of tourist experience. Travellers from faraway countries went to see productions in Italy, yet the operas tell stories of journeys between Italy and the Ottoman Empire. These operas were an object of the tourist gaze even as they perpetuated that gaze through imaginary encounters with exotic others. In the article, I explain the role of Italian opera in tourism at the turn of the eighteenth century and suggest ways in which tourist theory might help us understand Stendhal's operatic encounters, which in turn form part of the documentary basis of my study. I conclude that Rossini and his librettists upended many of the established hierarchies of tourism in these works, offering a fascinating critique of the tourist gaze in the process.
{"title":"The Tourist Gaze and Rossini's Operas about Others","authors":"Stephen Armstrong","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000101","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reconsiders two of Rossini's exoticist farces, L'italiana in Algeri (1813) and Il turco in Italia (1814), in the light of recent theoretical studies in tourism. These operas appeared at the juncture between the eighteenth-century Grand Tour and nineteenth-century mass tourism, and they became implicated in multiple layers of tourist experience. Travellers from faraway countries went to see productions in Italy, yet the operas tell stories of journeys between Italy and the Ottoman Empire. These operas were an object of the tourist gaze even as they perpetuated that gaze through imaginary encounters with exotic others. In the article, I explain the role of Italian opera in tourism at the turn of the eighteenth century and suggest ways in which tourist theory might help us understand Stendhal's operatic encounters, which in turn form part of the documentary basis of my study. I conclude that Rossini and his librettists upended many of the established hierarchies of tourism in these works, offering a fascinating critique of the tourist gaze in the process.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"82 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136112733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-09DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000162
Francesco Milella
In 2017, on the debut of the soprano Hui He in the role of Aida at the Hong Kong Opera, a Japanese finance and business website published a short article to introduce its readers to Verdi's monumental opera and more general issues of cultural appropriation and whitewashing related to it. What caught my attention, however, was the headline. Short and concise, it grasped an aspect that might have otherwise gone unnoticed: ‘Opera Hong Kong's new production of “Aida” in October will feature a Chinese soprano playing an African princess singing in Italian’. The headline writer was probably more intrigued by the multicultural quirkiness of this event and ignored, for the sake of the readers, its cultural and historical implications. In fact, the article itself succeeded in depicting this event as a proper, if not extreme, moment of transcultural encounters by mingling different cultures – the Ethiopian heritage of the protagonist of the opera, the musical aura of Italian operas and the Chinese nationality of the soprano Hui He, opposed to the location of the Hong Kong opera evoked by a Japanese magazine – under the unifying authority of Verdi's Aida . This article seemed to consciously invoke a multicultural dimension built around the perceived prestige of Aida and all the debates on imperialism that, from Said to Drummond and Locke, have become attached to it. Verdi's music is safely placed at the centre of a wide transcultural discourse which, rather than undermining the cultural ‘authority’ of Italian opera, reaffirms it even more strongly as a proper vehicle of ‘global uniformity’, as Christopher A. Bayly would define it.
{"title":"The Labyrinths of Global Opera","authors":"Francesco Milella","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000162","url":null,"abstract":"In 2017, on the debut of the soprano Hui He in the role of Aida at the Hong Kong Opera, a Japanese finance and business website published a short article to introduce its readers to Verdi's monumental opera and more general issues of cultural appropriation and whitewashing related to it. What caught my attention, however, was the headline. Short and concise, it grasped an aspect that might have otherwise gone unnoticed: ‘Opera Hong Kong's new production of “Aida” in October will feature a Chinese soprano playing an African princess singing in Italian’. The headline writer was probably more intrigued by the multicultural quirkiness of this event and ignored, for the sake of the readers, its cultural and historical implications. In fact, the article itself succeeded in depicting this event as a proper, if not extreme, moment of transcultural encounters by mingling different cultures – the Ethiopian heritage of the protagonist of the opera, the musical aura of Italian operas and the Chinese nationality of the soprano Hui He, opposed to the location of the Hong Kong opera evoked by a Japanese magazine – under the unifying authority of Verdi's Aida . This article seemed to consciously invoke a multicultural dimension built around the perceived prestige of Aida and all the debates on imperialism that, from Said to Drummond and Locke, have become attached to it. Verdi's music is safely placed at the centre of a wide transcultural discourse which, rather than undermining the cultural ‘authority’ of Italian opera, reaffirms it even more strongly as a proper vehicle of ‘global uniformity’, as Christopher A. Bayly would define it.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135095128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-29DOI: 10.1017/s095458672300006x
Rebecca Schmid
Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti created a stepping stone towards his own brand of serious but accessible music theater. While he dedicated the opera in seven scenes to Marc Blitzstein, that path was paved by the formal innovations of Kurt Weill. A comparative analysis of Trouble in Tahiti with Lady in the Dark reveals that Bernstein derived essential impulses from Weill's musical play, although the few statements he made about his music indicate ambivalence and competition, particularly with regard to Weill's American works. As Bernstein's female protagonist, Dinah, struggles to define herself vis-à-vis the institution of marriage, the themes of psychoanalysis, Hollywood glamour and the use of song as a meta-dramatic topic emerge as common threads. Select harmonies, instrumentation and rhythmic devices further evince debts to the precursor of Weill. But while Liza of Lady in the Dark finds her musical cure, Dinah does not meet with personal fulfilment.
伦纳德·伯恩斯坦（Leonard Bernstein）的《塔希提岛的麻烦》（Trouble in Tahiti）为他打造了一个严肃但通俗易懂的音乐剧院品牌。虽然他将这部歌剧的七个场景献给了马克·布利茨坦，但库尔特·威尔的正式创新为这条道路铺平了道路。对《塔希提岛的麻烦》和《黑暗中的女人》的比较分析表明，伯恩斯坦从威尔的音乐剧中获得了基本的冲动，尽管他对自己的音乐所做的少数陈述表明了矛盾和竞争，尤其是在威尔的美国作品中。当伯恩斯坦笔下的女主人公黛娜在婚姻制度面前努力定义自己时，精神分析、好莱坞魅力和歌曲作为元戏剧主题的使用成为了共同的线索。精选的和声、乐器和节奏装置进一步显示出对威尔先驱的亏欠。但是，当《黑暗中的女人》中的丽莎找到了她的音乐治疗方法时，黛娜并没有达到个人的成就。
{"title":"‘The Saga of Lenny’: Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and Weill's Lady in the Dark","authors":"Rebecca Schmid","doi":"10.1017/s095458672300006x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s095458672300006x","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti created a stepping stone towards his own brand of serious but accessible music theater. While he dedicated the opera in seven scenes to Marc Blitzstein, that path was paved by the formal innovations of Kurt Weill. A comparative analysis of Trouble in Tahiti with Lady in the Dark reveals that Bernstein derived essential impulses from Weill's musical play, although the few statements he made about his music indicate ambivalence and competition, particularly with regard to Weill's American works. As Bernstein's female protagonist, Dinah, struggles to define herself vis-à-vis the institution of marriage, the themes of psychoanalysis, Hollywood glamour and the use of song as a meta-dramatic topic emerge as common threads. Select harmonies, instrumentation and rhythmic devices further evince debts to the precursor of Weill. But while Liza of Lady in the Dark finds her musical cure, Dinah does not meet with personal fulfilment.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41576785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-17DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000125
Margareth Cormier
Abstract This article explores contemporary representations of wartime sexual violence on the operatic stage. Rape and the threat of rape loom over many operas in the canon, but even those operas that do not thematise rape may have sexual violence introduced to them in performance. Through analysis of four twenty-first century productions, I consider how the idea of sexual violence works in these wartime stories. Staging the implicit or explicit sexual violence in canonic operas can, in the best cases, allow for nuanced commentary on the subject in our cultural moment. But putting sexual violence on stage is controversial and can pose real risks to audience members. Instead of dismissing the proliferation of depictions of rape in wartime opera productions as mere scandalmongering, I explore specific representations through a feminist ethical framework, and ask: What do we risk and what might we gain by putting rape on stage in these operas?
{"title":"Production as Criticism: Staging Wartime Rape in the Opera Canon","authors":"Margareth Cormier","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000125","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores contemporary representations of wartime sexual violence on the operatic stage. Rape and the threat of rape loom over many operas in the canon, but even those operas that do not thematise rape may have sexual violence introduced to them in performance. Through analysis of four twenty-first century productions, I consider how the idea of sexual violence works in these wartime stories. Staging the implicit or explicit sexual violence in canonic operas can, in the best cases, allow for nuanced commentary on the subject in our cultural moment. But putting sexual violence on stage is controversial and can pose real risks to audience members. Instead of dismissing the proliferation of depictions of rape in wartime opera productions as mere scandalmongering, I explore specific representations through a feminist ethical framework, and ask: What do we risk and what might we gain by putting rape on stage in these operas?","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41603180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-11DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000149
Siel Agugliaro
In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social and political empowerment.
{"title":"From Grinder to Nipper: Opera, Music Technology and Italian American (Self-)Representation","authors":"Siel Agugliaro","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000149","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social and political empowerment.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47373361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-09DOI: 10.1017/s0954586723000137
Kendall Hatch Winter
Alva Belmont and Elsa Maxwell's Melinda and Her Sisters (1916) is a little-known work promoting women's suffrage, which was publicly performed only once in New York City. It was advertised as an operetta, a decision which minimised its overt stylistic and functional similarities to other genres of popular musical theatre from the period, namely, musical comedy and pageantry. Framed through Jeffrey Kallberg's concept of genre as a ‘gesture of labeling’, this article asks what could be gained – artistically, financially and politically – by Belmont and Maxwell's invocation of operetta and by their disavowal of other appropriate genre alternatives. I argue that the strategy reflects their fundraising priorities, the attitudes of their intended audience, and the social, political and artistic climates that constrained women's activities. This case study offers genre as a productive lens through which to interpret gynocentric musical production and performance.
{"title":"Genre, Class and Gender in a Suffragist Operetta: Melinda and Her Sisters (1916) at the Waldorf-Astoria","authors":"Kendall Hatch Winter","doi":"10.1017/s0954586723000137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954586723000137","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Alva Belmont and Elsa Maxwell's Melinda and Her Sisters (1916) is a little-known work promoting women's suffrage, which was publicly performed only once in New York City. It was advertised as an operetta, a decision which minimised its overt stylistic and functional similarities to other genres of popular musical theatre from the period, namely, musical comedy and pageantry. Framed through Jeffrey Kallberg's concept of genre as a ‘gesture of labeling’, this article asks what could be gained – artistically, financially and politically – by Belmont and Maxwell's invocation of operetta and by their disavowal of other appropriate genre alternatives. I argue that the strategy reflects their fundraising priorities, the attitudes of their intended audience, and the social, political and artistic climates that constrained women's activities. This case study offers genre as a productive lens through which to interpret gynocentric musical production and performance.","PeriodicalId":42672,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Opera Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47460248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：