The reception of female singers in nineteenth-century Britain, focusing on Jenny Lind (1820-1887)

This project investigates issues that shaped the reception of leading female singers in nineteenth-century Britain. Drawing upon a wealth of hitherto untapped primary sources, it focuses on the construction of Jenny Lind as a cultural icon with its attendant disparities between myth and reality. It analyses the conceptualizing of outstanding women singers within a cultural perspective that embraces musical issues, ranging from performance to the vested interests of the opera business, together with cultural and social factors. It considers how their public image was conditioned by prevailing ideologies of female decorum, including long-established views of the morality of the theatre.
The primary output will be a monograph. Further outputs will include articles and papers given at conferences and seminars.
My findings illustrate the importance of a broad array of factors (including nationalism and xenophobia, attitudes towards wealth and philanthropy, and religious conviction) in shaping the public reputations of female singers. Mine will be the first published work to place women singers in this wider socio-cultural context. By supplying new approaches and contextual frameworks my project will have a positive impact on nineteenth-century British studies in general, especially for the research community.