La Prima Donna: From a Profession to a Pejorative

Opera –a performing art with a centuries-full of iconic composers and singers from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Maria Callas—was a central profession in which women could not only work in public but also rise to the top of their profession. Indeed, "prima donnas," or the "first ladies" of the opera built successful careers for themselves, established themselves as women among the earliest celebrity icons, and often enjoyed the highest salaries within the opera and acted as breadwinners within their own homes.

However, from their roles in the precursor Commedia dell’Arte to opera, critics have also met prima donnas with criticisms concerning not just their public performances but also their private lives and often, derisions of their very personalities. Periodicals gossiped about the personal lives of prima donnas as difficult working women, scandalous in their private relationships, or both. As a result, the combination of their private personalities and public professions into one identity to critique led to the creation of "prima donna" not as a positive but instead as a pejorative term.

Why did this happen, and what does this say about the reactions to women’s authority in the public performing arts space and Euro-American social norms over time? La Prima Donna: From a Profession to a Pejorative seeks to respond to these questions and spotlights just a few of the prima donnas that have earned positive acclaim and faced negative critique over time. Some of these women with intersecting identities that have historically been marginalized in opera such as race and class have faced additional challenges like undesired comparisons.

Despite the private critiques that they faced, through their work as professional opera singers, prima donnas were agents of change in transforming their own lives as they were often able to move themselves across social classes using opera as their tool. Indeed, the soloist Marcella Sembrich, featured in the 1907 Victor recording below of the seminal aria Casta Diva from Bellini’s Norma, came from a poor Austro-Hungarian family and rose to heights like performing at the coveted New York Metropolitan Opera House. As a February 1899 edition of Munsey’s Magazine declared, “her father…kept the wolf from the door by giving lessons on the violin" ("Some Singers at the Opera," Munsey's Magazine, 1899). As a result, Sembrich could perform seminal operatic pieces like “Casta Diva” from Bellini’s Norma, displaying her skillful technique and prowess in vocal runs. Sembrich was also one of the first opera stars to preserve her voice on record as a commercial artist, according to the Sembrich Collection (n.d.). As such, La Prima Donna emphasizes that the negative perception of the term “prima donna” reflects a history of women’s authority in the operatic profession and the gendered critiques that they have received.

Curatorial Statement

When I set out to create this digital exhibit, I wanted to explore the professions that women have historically pursued, the reasons for which they pursued them, and the responses that arose. Although stories of women in the profession have been relatively under-represented in museums, the performing arts have, for centuries, been a key field in which women worked and participated in public. From Commedia dell’Arte to opera to ballet, they have been visible and were able to use their respective performing art to establish themselves in their societies. Yet, I also wanted to seek out why women associated with professions in the public eye like opera also garnered negative critiques not only about their professional lives but especially about their private lives so much so that titles like “prima donna” became negatively associated with women in the contemporary age.

To do so, I chose to chronologically track the origins of prima donnas in Euro-American history from their creation in Italian Commedia dell’Arte as argued by scholars like Rosalind Kerr to contemporary prima donnas who were portrayed negatively. I also aimed to highlight the accomplishments and additional challenges that prima donnas whose identity as women intersected with historically marginalized identities such as race and class faced.

Objects included to achieve this include a variety of popular prints and paintings that reflect prima donnas' popularity with the public such as trading cards, satirical prints and sketches that feature beliefs about their attitudes, and physical objects ranging from paper doll sets, costumes, gloves, and fans that reflect the artistry and opulence that went into creating a performing art that doubled as a social event.

As such, La Prima Donna: From a Profession to a Pejorative, addresses the increasing publicity of women who sought the performing arts as a career, how their public professions challenged traditional social norms, the rise of celebrity culture, and the impacts it had on women professionals. I hope to leave visitors with a better understanding that opera was highly influential as a public career field in which women could rise to the top, a performing art that helped create the idea of the popular music icon, and an art where the public perception of its stars influenced negative stereotypes of working women that have continued today.