Abstract

GUILLAMON, Guillermina Mariel. How well the scene is known! How is strengh felt in each musical note! Female singers, agency and social representations in Buenos Aires (1920s). Cuad. Fac. Humanid. Cienc. Soc., Univ. Nac. Jujuy [online]. 2019, n.56, pp.143-166. ISSN 1668-8104.

At the beginning of nineteenth century Buenos Aires was characterized by having a consolidated musical scene, where more than forty Italian operas were represented. This article explores a fundamental aspect of the musical culture: the Italian female singers arrived in Buenos Aires. In particular, we focus on the reconstruction of Angela Tanni‘s and Julieta Anselmi’s trajectories. While the former had a strong presence in the Buenos Aires press for being the prima donna of the lyric company, the latter was known for a civil litigation in which she sought to disassociate herself from the singer who had brought her from Rio de Janeiro. This leads us, then, to make a differential approach, on the one hand to analyze Angela Tanni’s genre presentations done by the press during the 1820s; on the other hand to problematize the relations between the musical profession and genre present in a lengthy civil trial in which Carlota Anselmi was denounced for breach of her contract. Additionally, the porteña musical scene is briefly characterized as well as some distinctive features of the operas represented. Consequently, we propose that in the intersection between musical scene and the singers’ trajectories emerges a conceptualization of the femininity with agency. Likewise, these representation of femininity - and gender relationships - coincided with the plots of Rossini’s operas: women with the capacity to act on themselves and on the rest of the characters

Keywords : Women singers; Opera; Social representations; Buenos Aires; 1820s.

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