Feasting and Fasting in Opera

"In this book, opera scholar Pierpaolo Polzonetti shows that the consumption of food and drink is a meaningful, essential component of opera, both on and off the stage. The book explores how convivial culture shaped the birth of opera and its development, especially through the early nineteenth century, when eating at the opera house was still common. Through analyses of convivial scenes in operas from Monteverdi to Verdi and Puccini, the book then shows how food/drink consumption and sharing, or refusal to do so, define the characters' identity and relationships. The first part of the book moves chronologically from around 1480 to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Wagner's operatic reforms put a stop to conviviality at the opera house by banishing refreshments during the performance and mandating a darkened auditorium and absorbed listening. The second part instead focuses on questions of comedy, embodiment, and indulgence in both tragic and comic operas from Monteverdi to Mozart. In the third part, Polzonetti looks at opera characters, their onstage consumption of coffee and chocolate, and what it signifies for their social standing within the opera. The book ends with an illuminating and entertaining discussion of the diet Maria Callas underwent in preparation for her famous performance as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata. Neither food lovers nor opera lovers will want to miss Polzonetti's page-turning and imaginative book"--