Mirroring Cuzzoni
A Practitioner’s Aesthetic Protest
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31265/nq5mfc20Keywords:
female performers, opera seria, artistic practice, Francesca CuzzoniAbstract
Within this paper I will explore the conceptual underpinnings and artistic processes behind two new works written for me by composer Geoffrey King; ‘Little Siren of the Stage’ and ‘Cuzzoni’s Letter’. These pieces make central the historical identity of female performer Francesca Cuzzoni, for whom Handel constructed roles well known in our contemporary operatic canon. This work forms part of my PhD research at the Royal Academy of Music in which I examine female performing identity across time, using Handel’s opera seria as a case study. In this article I question what contemporary operatic practitioners can learn about their identities via mirroring and centralising the historical performer’s influence over the historical, usually male, figure of the composer. At the crux of this paper is a discussion around what working with the lesser-heard voices of historical female performers can tell us about ourselves within the discipline of operatic performance today.
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