The Rival Sirens

Suzanne Aspden is a lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford. As a leading Handel scholar, she has made numerous appearances on BBC Radio and Television and has been the co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal since 2009. Her research interests include opera and identity politics in music, and she has been awarded a number of fellowships in the US, UK and India. She has published articles in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Musical Quarterly, the Journal of the Royal Music Association and the Cambridge Opera Journal and is co-editor, with Michael Burden, of a forthcoming book on Cavalli's Erismena.

• Introduction; 1. The character of the actress; 2. 'Heroick virtue' in Rodelinda and Astianatte; 3. Identification and illusion in Alessandro and Admeto; 4. Balancing power in Riccardo Primo; 5. Senesino and the crisis of heroic masculinity; 6. The ornamental voice.

'… uses the largely fictitious rivalry between opera divas Francesca Cuzzoni (1696–1778) and Faustina Bordoni (1697–1781) as the departure point for investigating identity and concepts of self in 18th century theatre and opera seria … Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.' S. C. Champagne, Choice