Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The Umbrage Files: "Diva" edition
Every now and then you've got to take umbrage with something
Zinka Milanov, true diva
Video:
Zinka Milanov sings Tosca (vaimusic.com)
Patricia Racette and Craig Terry
- Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Avenue, Downtown San Diego
- $30 - $130
I haven’t taken umbrage with anything in a while. What good is a column without some umbrage? Today’s umbrage is brought to you by the term diva.
Nowadays, we have three-year-olds wearing "diva in training" shirts, but that wasn’t always the case.
Diva means goddess — kind of. Its origins are in the Roman practice of apotheosis, the process of posthumous deification. The process didn’t start with Julius Caesar but it became conventional after his death and continued throughout the imperial era. Men who were deified were called divus and women were diva.
Divine is probably a better way to define the term instead of goddess. A good example of a diva is Diva Faustina. She was a Roman empress remembered for her charity and supporting education for the poor, particularly girls.
The cult of Diva Faustina became widespread after her death. There was a coin struck with her image and a temple built in her honor. Newlyweds were encouraged to pray at the altar in her temple as she and her husband, Emperor Antonius, were considered to have had an ideal marriage.
In the 19th century the term diva started being applied to opera singers, mainly sopranos. In the 20th century, several sopranos, most famously Maria Callas, were referred to as diva.
The mid-20th century was the era which I most associate with the opera diva. Yet not all great sopranos are divas in my mind.
Birgit Nilsson and Kirsten Flagstad were two of the greatest singers of all time but I don’t associate the term diva with them because they were best known for their Wagner. For some reason, diva and Wagner don't mix.
The divas were Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas, Zinka Milanov, Renata Scotto, and Leontyne Price. Mirella Freni is probably a diva but she seems too sweet. None of these were known for their Wagner. These are the great sopranos of the Italian repertoire — divas.
The term then became associated with the leading soprano role. One might go to the opera and hear the question, “So who is the diva?”
An opera aficionado would probably start holding forth about Zinka Milanov versus Renata Tebaldi. The dilettante asking the question would be confused and might say something such as, “I meant who is the diva tonight.”
Now San Diego Opera is presenting a concert entitled Diva on Detour . The concert is soprano Patricia Racette singing standards by Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, and others. Annie Lennox started the trend in pop culture by naming her solo album Diva.
This deteriorated into the three-year-old being called a diva. However, a quick Google search also yields the Beyonce-inspired meme, "Diva is a female version of a hustla."
That’s a far cry from a Roman empress deified for educating Roman girls and helping the poor. I take umbrage.
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Umbrage Files: "Diva" edition
Every now and then you've got to take umbrage with something
The Umbrage Files: "Diva" edition
Every now and then you've got to take umbrage with something
Zinka Milanov, true diva
Video:
Zinka Milanov sings Tosca (vaimusic.com)
Patricia Racette and Craig Terry
- Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Avenue, Downtown San Diego
- $30 - $130
I haven’t taken umbrage with anything in a while. What good is a column without some umbrage? Today’s umbrage is brought to you by the term diva.
Nowadays, we have three-year-olds wearing "diva in training" shirts, but that wasn’t always the case.
Diva means goddess — kind of. Its origins are in the Roman practice of apotheosis, the process of posthumous deification. The process didn’t start with Julius Caesar but it became conventional after his death and continued throughout the imperial era. Men who were deified were called divus and women were diva.
Divine is probably a better way to define the term instead of goddess. A good example of a diva is Diva Faustina. She was a Roman empress remembered for her charity and supporting education for the poor, particularly girls.
The cult of Diva Faustina became widespread after her death. There was a coin struck with her image and a temple built in her honor. Newlyweds were encouraged to pray at the altar in her temple as she and her husband, Emperor Antonius, were considered to have had an ideal marriage.
In the 19th century the term diva started being applied to opera singers, mainly sopranos. In the 20th century, several sopranos, most famously Maria Callas, were referred to as diva.
The mid-20th century was the era which I most associate with the opera diva. Yet not all great sopranos are divas in my mind.
Birgit Nilsson and Kirsten Flagstad were two of the greatest singers of all time but I don’t associate the term diva with them because they were best known for their Wagner. For some reason, diva and Wagner don't mix.
The divas were Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas, Zinka Milanov, Renata Scotto, and Leontyne Price. Mirella Freni is probably a diva but she seems too sweet. None of these were known for their Wagner. These are the great sopranos of the Italian repertoire — divas.
The term then became associated with the leading soprano role. One might go to the opera and hear the question, “So who is the diva?”
An opera aficionado would probably start holding forth about Zinka Milanov versus Renata Tebaldi. The dilettante asking the question would be confused and might say something such as, “I meant who is the diva tonight.”
Now San Diego Opera is presenting a concert entitled Diva on Detour . The concert is soprano Patricia Racette singing standards by Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, and others. Annie Lennox started the trend in pop culture by naming her solo album Diva.
This deteriorated into the three-year-old being called a diva. However, a quick Google search also yields the Beyonce-inspired meme, "Diva is a female version of a hustla."
That’s a far cry from a Roman empress deified for educating Roman girls and helping the poor. I take umbrage.
Comments