Feasting and Fasting in Opera

Feasting and Fasting in Opera shows that the consumption of food and drink is an essential component of opera, both on and off stage. In this book, opera scholar Pierpaolo Polzonetti explores how convivial culture shaped the birth of opera and opera-going rituals until the mid-nineteenth century, when eating and drinking at the opera house were still common. Through analyses of convivial scenes in operas, the book also shows how the consumption of food and drink, and sharing or the refusal to do so, define characters identity and relationships. Feasting and Fasting in Opera moves chronologically from around 1480 to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Wagners operatic reforms banished refreshments during the performance and mandated a darkened auditorium and absorbed listening. The book focuses on questions of comedy, pleasure, embodiment, and indulgencelooking at fasting, poisoning, food disorders, body types, diet, and social, ethnic, and gender identitiesin both tragic and comic operas from Monteverdi to Puccini. Polzonetti also sheds new light on the diet Maria Callas underwent in preparation for her famous performance as Violetta, the consumptive heroine of Verdis La traviata. Neither food lovers nor opera scholars will want to miss Polzonettis page-turning and imaginative book.