Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2013-05-16 Devastating Diva: Pauline Viardot and Rewriting the Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century French Opera Culture Rebecca Bennett Fairbank Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Classics Commons, and the Comparative Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Fairbank, Rebecca Bennett, "Devastating Diva: Pauline Viardot and Rewriting the Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century French Opera Culture" (2013). Theses and Dissertations. 3788. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3788 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. Devastating Diva: Pauline Viardot and Rewriting the Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century French Opera Culture Rebecca Bennett Fairbank A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Michael J. Call, Chair Francesca S. Lawson Larry H. Peer Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature Brigham Young University May 2013 Copyright © 2013 Rebecca B. Fairbank All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Devastating Diva: Pauline Viardot and Rewriting the Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century French Opera Culture Rebecca Bennett Fairbank Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature, BYU Master of Arts Historically vilified, the vocalizing woman developed a stereotyped image with the emergence of the prima donna in eighteenth-century opera. By the nineteenth century, the prima donna became the focal point for socio-cultural polemics: women sought financial and social independence through a career on the operatic stage while society attempted to maintain through various means the socio-cultural stability now threatened by women’s mobility.