Vocea are gen? De la contextul european al primadonei la traiectoriile Haricleei Darclée, Elenei Teodorini și Floricăi Cristoforeanu
Does the Voice Have Gender? From the European Context of the Prima Donna to the Trajectories of Hariclea Darclée, Elena Teodorini, and Florica Cristoforeanu

Summary/Abstract: This article investigates the relationship between voice and gender constructs, starting from the provocative question „Does the voice have gender?”. The analysis lies at the intersection of cultural history, gender studies, and musicology, exploring how the female lyric voice was shaped, perceived, and valued in the European context of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The figure of the primadonna, crystallized on the great stages of Europe, becomes a privileged space for negotiation between artistic expressiveness, stage visibility, mobility, and economic and institutional power.The biographies and studies dedicated to the three artists are generally autobiographical, memorialistic, or commemorative in nature. Although rich in facts, Romanian historiography rarely treats these artists from the perspective of gender studies, the construction of female artistic identity, and media discourse analysis.Through comparative contextualization and discursive analysis, the article proposes a reassessment of the status of the European primadonna from the perspective of the trajectories of Hariclea Darclée, Elena Teodorini, and Florica Cristoforeanu. The novelty of the approach lies in the integration of a gender perspective on critical and media discourse, as well as in the international contextualization of these artists' careers, going beyond the traditional monographic framework. The three case studies highlight the tensions between the aesthetic conventions of the era, public expectations, and individual strategies for professional affirmation, demonstrating that the voice is not only a biological given, but also a cultural and symbolic construct, and that the primadonna represents not only a vocal ideal, but also a figure of artistic authority who reconfigures the limits imposed on women in the public sphere.

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