cover image Angels and Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera, 1600-1900

Angels and Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera, 1600-1900

Richard Somerset-Ward. Yale University Press, $35 (325pp) ISBN 978-0-300-09968-3

When arresting vocal artistry and colossal egos combine, the result is explosive, shows Somerset-Ward in this history of the original prima donnas: those women--and men--whose angelic soprano voices brought them fame and whose willful caprice earned them monstrous reputations. The author chronicles opera's rise and eventual decline through its male and female stars, particularly focusing on the Italian bel canto, or""beautiful singing,"" style that dominated 18th-century opera and continues to inform vocal technique today. A former head of music programming for the BBC, Somerset-Ward has an ear for illustrative anecdotes that help move his story forward. He introduces both famous and obscure sopranos that inspired composers (even as they chafed at their singers' antics) and dominated early box offices. There is Francesca Cuzzoni, so obnoxiously self-important that an exasperated Handel once threatened to toss her out of a window; Katherine Tofts, who went insane and thought she really was the characters she portrayed; Angelica Catalani, whose contract demanded absolute power in choosing operas, roles and fellow cast members; and Nellie Melba, who was as renowned for her tactlessness as for her ethereal singing. Women sopranos were only part of the equation though; the castrati, those surgically created male sopranos whose dynamic voices were""basically female equipment powered by massively developed male lungs,"" won the spotlight over their female rivals for two centuries. Tastes, however, changed. Women sopranos ruled the 19th century, just as more dramatic opera forms emerged, displacing bel canto's vocal pyrotechnics. Both dilettantes and well-read opera fans will find this book worthwhile and entertaining.