ABSTRACT

Chapter 4 expands on Verdi’s predilection for exceptional women who escaped the supposedly innate inferiority of their sex. He was afforded the primary opportunity for such company through his professional dealings as an operatic composer. Female opera singers presented a challenge to creatively ambitious male composers such as Verdi. Because of their hard-won convenienze, as possessors of unusual vocal skills, they might demand privileged opportunities for display, attracting adulation or later, criticism, as ‘divas’. Verdi experienced tensions and conflicts with the singers met in this chapter, which were resolved as he gained success and they deferred to his musical control.