Opera Acts

Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteenth Century

Karen Henson

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781107004269
• eBook ISBN: 9781316190500
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Opera Music

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Series Page
• Title page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Music examples
• Acknowledgements
• Note and abbreviations
• 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
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index