The Idea of Prima Donna: IRASM 47 (2016) 2: 237-287 the History of a Very Special Opera’S Institution
V. Kotnik: The Idea of Prima Donna: IRASM 47 (2016) 2: 237-287 the History of a Very Special Opera’s Institution Vlado Kotnik Faculty of Humanities, Department of Media Studies University of Primorska The Idea of Prima Donna: KOPER, Slovenia E-mail: vlado.kotnik@guest. the History of a Very arnes.si Special Opera’s Institution UDC: 782 Received: March 8, 2016 Primljeno: 8. ožujka 2016. Accepted: October 10, 2016 Prihvaćeno: 10. listopada 2016. Abstract – Résumé This article examines the historical constitution and construction of prima donna, probably the most intrinsic Introduction institution of opera expand- ing from the end of the sixteenth century until today. Opera is a very complex system of different From the 16th to the 21st kinds of craft and artistry. However, throughout its century the opera’s prima donna has experienced entire history one craft in particular dominated the numerous cultural transfor- field, the craft of singers. Even now, at the beginning mations and commodifica- of the twenty-first century, singing seems to be the tions. Her idea was determined by paradigms lifeblood of opera while other elements, such as the and concepts of absence orchestra, acting, staging, setting, décor, costumes, and replaceability in the sixteenth and seventeenth etc., seem to be important but supplementary. The centuries, of human nature singing operatic voice, with all its idiosyncrasies, and body, sexuality and gender, character and charm, magnetic power, temper, theatricality, costume in the eighteenth seductiveness, drama, technique, virtuosity, century, of aura and fetish in pedantry, extravagance, mysteriousness, and artist- the nineteenth century, and of identity in the twentieth ry, drew and continues to draw people to the opera and twenty-first centuries.
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