Demented?

In her famous piece on opera and madness, American musicologist Susan McClary mentions that ‘Ethan Morden’s book on the phenomenon of the diva bears the title Demented, because (he explains) “demented” is the highest accolade one can bestow on a prima donna’s performance -or at least it was so for a particular time among opera buffs at the Met. The excess that marks the utterances of Lucia or Salome as insane is thereby elevated to the status of an essential ingredient -a sine qua non- of interpretations by women opera stars, regardless of the specific role’. Indeed, in the case of Lucia, dementia is a particularly important element, as the climax of the opera happens when the soprano suffers a crisis musically depicted by ridiculously complex vocal acrobatics. Perhaps Natalie Dessay’s terrific rendition of the main character was the…