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Performance and Identity on London's Operatic Stage: The 'Rival Queens', Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni

伦敦歌剧院舞台上的表演和身份：“竞争皇后”、弗朗西斯卡·库佐尼和福斯蒂娜·博尔多尼

基本信息

批准号：
AH/F003129/1
负责人：
Suzanne Aspden
金额：
$ 3.25万
依托单位：
University of Oxford
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2008
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2008 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF003129%2F1
关键词：
Performance Identity London Operatic Stage

项目摘要

Stories of female singer rivalry assume highly symbolic status in the popular conception of opera. In this study I aim to show the significance such stories can hold for our critical understanding of opera through an examination of perhaps the most important of these legendary rivalries -- that stirred up in 1720s London during Handel's management, between Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. In turning to these women, I am seeking not so much to create a new biographical narrative as to re-evaluate the engineering of the old: the clamour of report surrounding their encounter masks the curious absence of the women's own voices, suggesting (perhaps) that the rivalry may have been less their creation than the manufacture of others. This study's appraisal of the topos of female rivalry will emerge through an appreciation of the processes that helped to form singer identity in eighteenth-century opera. In the operas prepared for the 'rival singers' during the period 1726-1728, where the thorny issues of equality and difference were particularly pressing, we can especially trace such concerns. I will explore the music, libretti, satires and more sober histories written for and about these two women to show how these works, in effect, created them. Thus Giovanni Bononcini's _Astianatte_, and G.F. Handel's _Admeto_, _Riccardo Primo_ and _Siroe_, among other works, will be used to elucidate the complex, corporate process of creating performer identity -- a process which, it is hoped, will in turn shed new light on the nature of the operatic experience and of the genre itself.Following an introductory chapter, contextualising the nature of performance on the early eighteenth-century stage, and the particular problems it presented for women in terms of personal identity, a series of studies of individual works will present different facets of the Bordoni-Cuzzoni rivalry. A chapter on Giovanni Bononcini's _Astianatte_ (1727), the opera in which the women reputedly came to blows, will show how the opera management manipulated the women's antagonism by polarising their characters into the familiar good/bad woman dichotomy. The following chapter, on Handel's _Admeto_, will consider the malleable nature of the women's identities, demonstrating that this work's play with disguise, staging, and musical design showed the contemporary audience how opposition could be turned into equivalence (and back again). Such changeability, which might to us seem contradictory, for an eighteenth-century audience would have confirmed an overarching belief in the mutability of women. The fourth chapter will take a more practical bent, arguing that substantial changes made to Handel's _Riccardo Primo_ before its premiere in November 1727 were designed to alleviate tensions between the singers and their factions, rendering the concept of equality more palatable. Having considered the articulation of the women's apparent rivalry, in the fifth chapter I will turn to their male lead, the castrato Senesino, to ask how the operas' emphasis on the women affected his role. In Handel's _Siroe_, we will see a dramatisation of Senesino's plight, showing that his status as the focus of competition between the women nullified his more usual heroic role, reducing him to the status of love interest. Finally, the conclusion will turn to the feature for which the women were best known, their powers of ornamentation, to ask what the focus on embellishment might tell us not only about the women's voices, but about the way they themselves were perceived in eighteenth-century society.

女歌手竞争的故事在流行的歌剧观念中具有高度的象征意义。在这项研究中，我的目的是通过对这些传奇竞争中最重要的一个的考察，展示这些故事对我们对歌剧的批判性理解的重要性——这种竞争在 1720 年代的伦敦亨德尔的管理期间，由弗朗西斯卡·库佐尼 (Francesca Cuzzoni) 和福斯蒂娜·博尔多尼 (Faustina Bordoni) 之间掀起。在谈到这些女性时，我并不是想创造一种新的传记叙事，而是要重新评估旧的传记叙事：围绕她们遭遇的报道的喧嚣掩盖了女性自己声音的奇怪缺席，这表明（也许）这种竞争可能不是她们自己创造的，而是其他人制造的。这项研究对女性竞争的主题的评估将通过对十八世纪歌剧中有助于形成歌手身份的过程的欣赏而出现。在1726年至1728年期间为“对手歌手”准备的歌剧中，平等与差异的棘手问题尤为紧迫，我们尤其可以追踪到这种担忧。我将探索为这两位女性而写的音乐、剧本、讽刺作品和更清醒的历史，以展示这些作品实际上是如何创造了她们的。因此 Giovanni Bononcini 的 _Astianatte_ 和 G.F.亨德尔的《阿德梅托》、《里卡多·普里莫》和《西罗》等作品将被用来阐明创造表演者身份的复杂的、共同的过程——希望这一过程反过来能够为歌剧体验和流派本身的本质提供新的启示。在介绍性章节之后，将介绍十八世纪早期舞台表演的本质，以及它给女性带来的特殊问题。在个人身份方面，一系列对个人作品的研究将呈现博尔多尼-库佐尼竞争的不同方面。乔瓦尼·博农西尼 (Giovanni Bononcini) 的《Astianatte》 (1727) 中的一章将展示歌剧管理层如何通过将她们的角色分化为熟悉的好/坏女人二分法来操纵女性的对抗。这部歌剧据说在这部歌剧中，妇女们互相打斗。下一章关于亨德尔的《阿德梅托》，将考虑女性身份的可塑性，展示这部作品的伪装、舞台表演和音乐设计，向当代观众展示了如何将对立转变为对等（然后再转回来）。这种可变性在我们看来可能是矛盾的，但对于十八世纪的观众来说，却证实了对女性可变性的总体信念。第四章将采取更实际的倾向，认为亨德尔的《里卡多·普里莫》在 1727 年 11 月首演之前对其进行的重大修改旨在缓解歌手及其派系之间的紧张关系，使平等的概念更容易被接受。在考虑了对女性明显竞争的阐述之后，在第五章中，我将转向男主角阉人歌手塞内西诺，询问歌剧对女性的强调如何影响了他的角色。在亨德尔的《Siroe》中，我们将看到塞内西诺困境的戏剧化，表明他作为女性之间竞争焦点的地位使他通常的英雄角色变得无效，使他沦为情人的地位。最后，结论将转向女性最出名的特征，即她们的装饰力量，以询问对装饰的关注不仅可以告诉我们女性的声音，还可以告诉我们她们自己在十八世纪社会中被感知的方式。