Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848 by Kimberly White

Abstract

Reviewed by: Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848 by Kimberly White Lydia Bechtel Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848. By Kimberly White. (Cambridge Studies in Opera.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. [xi, 239 p. ISBN 9781107101234 (hardcover), $99.99; also available as e-book, ISBN and price vary.] Illustrations, tables, appendix, bibliography, index. Recently, musicological scholarship and pedagog y have gradually shifted away from composer-driven narratives to conversations that include the breadth of artists involved in the music-making process. Kimberly White’s Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848 shadows this change and demonstrates the merits of exploring the contributions of performers and their complete artistic journeys as a more thorough examination of music history. While not focusing on any one singer, White chronicles the trajectory of training, rise to fame, and autumnal decline of French female singers through an exploration of primary-source documents, journals, and serial publications. As White explains in the introduction, this focus “restore[s] women to the historical record” and “expand[s] traditional notions of historical significance to acknowledge their lived experiences” (p. 3). Her book concentrates on a seemingly narrow eighteen-year period, but it is one of great change in French opera and society, which she expertly weaves into her analysis of how female singers lived in the changing systems of the time. White’s greatest strength is her ability to draw information from so many resources (serial novels, correspondence, contracts, journals, reviews, memoirs, and biographies) and to artic ulate how female singers moved through the French operatic world of the mid-nineteenth century. She does this by starting at the earliest stages of a singer’s career, following the initial [End Page 79] discovery of talent, through private training and entry into the Paris Conservatoire. While the presentation of so much information can at times be a dry read, on the whole White synthesizes the information in a narrative style that allows one to methodically follow the musical journeys of these women. For example, in chapter 1, which begins with a discussion of a young woman’s initiation into musical studies, White presents the family origins and professions of female Conservatoire students as well as those of Opéra and Opéra-Comique singers (pp. 13–15). White sifted through countless documents to gather this information, and she presents it in tables and elaborates on it in the text. It is because of this painstaking attention to detail and labor-intensive scholarship that readers are able to appreciate the hard work of these female singers as they see them go from young trainee in the Conservatoire to ingénue at the Opéra. In chapter 2, White skillfully chronicles the progression from novice student to professional debut. The focus on how young singers transitioned to the professional stage ultimately “shows how female artists took an active role in constructing their careers” (p. 39). White offers details on the preparations of the singer for her debut and the inner workings of such events at French opera houses. It is, however, the focus on the singers themselves and how they negotiated the terms of their debuts (usually with some degree of aid from a male protector) that best supports White’s thesis. Another important aspect of the debut process White covers is the creation of an artist’s image. As she reveals, singers like Cornélie Falcon and Emilia Goggi embodied an image of morality, humility, and deference to ensure a successful debut, while Louise Lavoye’s audacious ambition put her at risk for scrutiny by critics. Ultimately, what White demonstrates through her exploration of the debutantes in this chapter is that these women understood how to best prepare and present themselves, thus exerting some personal control over their professional situation—something for which music history does not often give women credit. In chapter 3, White presents one of the book’s strongest musical-historical outlines, in which she analyzes the impact of the July Revolution on the operational functions of French opera houses. Her examination of the new system, which made the houses more entrepreneurial and less reliant on government support, allows for a conversation concerning...