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Overview"On September 29, 1927, Cuban soprano Rita Montaner walked onto the stage of Havana's Teatro Regina, her features obscured under a mask of blackened glycerin and her body clad in the tight pants, boots, and riding jacket of a coachman. Standing alongside a gilded carriage and a live horse, the blackfaced, cross-dressed actress sang the premiere of Eliseo Grenet's tango-congo, ""Ay Mama Ines."" The crowd went wild. Montaner's performance cemented ""Ay Mama Ines"" as one of the classics in the Cuban repertoire, but more importantly, the premiere heralded the birth of the Cuban zarzuela, a new genre of music theater that over the next fifteen years transformed popular entertainment on the island. Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havana's Lyric Stage marks the first comprehensive study of the Cuban zarzuela, a Spanish-language light opera with spoken dialogue that originated in Spain but flourished in Havana during the early twentieth century. Created by musicians and managers to fill a growing demand for family entertainment, the zarzuela evidenced the emerging economic and cultural power of Cuba's white female bourgeoisie to influence the entertainment industry.Susan Thomas explores zarzuela's function as a pedagogical tool, through which composers, librettists, and business managers hoped to control their troupes and audiences by presenting desirable and problematic images of both feminine and masculine identities. Zarzuela was, Thomas explains, ""anti-feminist but pro-feminine, its plots focusing on female protagonists and its musical scores showcasing the female voice."" Focusing on character types such as the mulata, the negrito, and the ingenue, Thomas uncovers the zarzuela's richly textured relationship to social constructs of race, class, and especially gender." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Susan ThomasPublisher: University of Illinois Press Imprint: University of Illinois Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.544kg ISBN: 9780252033315ISBN 10: 0252033310 Pages: 264 Publication Date: 11 November 2008 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. Cuban Lyric Theater in Context 11 2. Eminently Feminine: The Politics of Gender and Genre 26 3. The Mulata Makes an Entrance: The Salidas of Maria Ia O, Cecilia Valdes, and Amalia Barista 40 4. From the Negrito to the Negro Tragico: The Changing Representation of Black Masculinity 81 5. Ingenues and Fallen Women: Representations of White Femininity 109 6. Ambivalent Heroes and Sensual Peasants: The Galan and the Criollo 154 Epilogue 177 Appendix 183 Notes 191 Bibliography 221 Index 237ReviewsNo other author addresses the Cuban zarzuela in such a distinctive manner. Susan Thomas offers revelatory musical and cultural analyses in a captivating narrative replete with unexpected twists and illuminating conclusions. Her interviews with performers are invaluable to the historical record and her methodology provides a model for others to follow. What a powerful contribution to the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, gender studies, theater studies, and Latin American studies! Janet Sturman, author of Zarzuela: Spanish Operetta, American Stage Author InformationSusan Thomas is a professor of musicology and Director of the American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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