Music professor Hilary Poriss writes new book about the
influence of opera singers. Photo by Lauren McFalls July 29,
2009 In her new book “Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas,
and the Authority of Performance” (Oxford University Press, the
AMS Series in Music), Northeastern University assistant music
professor Hilary Poriss reveals some of the backstage drama in
Italian operatic history that set the tone for some of the
world’s most famous scores. In their heyday, 19th-century
Italian opera performers were the ‘Angelina Jolies’ and ‘Brad
Pitts’ of their time, according to Poriss. Their celebrity
status gave them the power to make or break the careers of some
of the most famous composers of the time—legends like Rossini,
and Donizetti—and these operatic stars flaunted their status by
making changes to operas as they saw fit. “Singers had a lot of
power in the 19th century. They were the ones audiences came to
see,” Poriss says. “Opera was the main form of entertainment in
Italy at the time, and so singers