'Attitudes with a shawl': performance, femininity, and spectatorship at the Italian opera in early nineteenth-century London

Cowgill, Rachel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9835-4039 2012. 'Attitudes with a shawl': performance, femininity, and spectatorship at the Italian opera in early nineteenth-century London. Cowgill, Rachel and Poriss, Hilary, eds. The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 217-251.

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is the internationally celebrated bravura soprano Angelica Catalani, who, the chapter argues, reveals the ambiguities of the prima donna as a cultural figure in early nineteenth-century London. Catalani’s exhibitions of “attitudes with a Shawl” were one of the means by which she asserted a claim to be taken seriously as a creative artist; but the heated exchange they provoked in the press suggests that for the masculine gaze they constituted a transgressive mix of aesthetic, voyeuristic, and sensual pleasures. By contrast, for aristocratic women in the audience, Catalani’s “attitudes” modeled an idealized patrician femininity. Tracing the genealogy of Catalani’s “attitudes,” the chapter explores tensions and contradictions in early nineteenth-century English views of the prima donna, the role of operatic performance in negotiating femininities, and the potency of the figures of prostitute/courtesan and social-climber in regulating female performance whether on stage or in the opera box.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Music
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Angelica Catalani; attitudes; shawl; gaze; femininities; prostitute; courtesan; social-climber
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISBN:	9780195365870
Funders:	University of Leeds Worldwide Universities Network scheme, Liverpool Hope University, American Musicological Society Plamenac Endowment (publication subvention), Music & Letters Trust, Northeastern University
Related URLs:	Publisher http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/978...
Last Modified:	18 Oct 2022 14:04
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/16388

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item