Technology and the Diva : Sopranos, Opera, and Media from Romanticism to the Digital Age

Focusing on the operatic soprano and her relationships with technology from the 1820s to the twenty-first-century digital age, this book considers how the 'diva's' voice and allure have been created by technologies and media such as theatrical stagecraft, journalism, and the simulcast.

In Technology and the Diva, Karen Henson brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to explore the neglected subject of opera and technology. Their essays focus on the operatic soprano and her relationships with technology from the heyday of Romanticism in the 1820s and 1830s to the twenty-first-century digital age. The authors pay particular attention to the soprano in her larger than life form, as the 'diva', and they consider how her voice and allure have been created by technologies and media including stagecraft and theatrical lighting, journalism, the telephone, sound recording, and visual media from the painted portrait to the high definition simulcast. In doing so, the authors experiment with new approaches to the female singer, to opera in the modern - and post-modern - eras, and to the often controversial subject of opera's involvement with technology and technological innovation.