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Maria Malibran
April FitzLyon
其他書名
Diva of the Romantic Age
出版Souvenir Press, 1987
主題Biography & Autobiography / GeneralBiography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / GeneralBiography & Autobiography / Music
ISBN02856503009780285650305
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=RXoZAQAAIAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋Born in 1808, Maria Malibran was one of the most beautiful and accomplished opera singers of her day. Those who attended her performances were enraptured, ecstatic; she was mobbed by screaming fans like any twentieth century pop star. Yet her influence went further, for more than any of her contemporaries on the stage, she personified the moods and aspirations of the Romantic age, and she became the muse of poets, novelists and painters. From the moment of her death in 1836--at the age of 28--she was deified; she became an idealised figure, with no apparent human failings. Existing biographies of La Malibran tend to perpetuate the myths that have surrounded her. April FitzLyon has sought instead to explore the reality behind the cult of the superstar: the sad catalogue of incest, bigamy, hysteria and unwanted pregnancies that shadowed her career. She was, in the context of the time, a doubly disadvantaged person: an actress, and a woman; a goddess on the stage, feted by her public, an outcast off it, received as little more than a servant into the salons of Paris. The continual struggle to placate her audiences and balance her public and private lives made her a victim of her very success. Like many modern superstars, she cracked under the strain and her death, although apparently the result of an accident, was the only possible solution to her problems. Using much unpublished material, this readable and carefully researched biography exposes La Malibran's personal life for the first time, describes her impact on French literature and explores the phenomenon of her cult. It also provides an absorbing study of the period: an age of revolution, emotion and free expression.