The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth CenturyFemale characters assumed increasing prominence in the narratives of nineteenth and early twentieth century opera. And for contemporary audiences, many of these characters and the celebrated women who played them still define opera at its finest and most searingly effective, even if storylines leave them swooning and faded by the end of the drama. The presence and representation of women in opera have been addressed in a range of recent studies that