Changing the Score

"Serves as a model of engaging and committed scholarship." --Journal of the American Musicological Society "Written in lively prose, this book opens up fresh perspectives of a little explored area of operatic performance practice, and offers intriguing new material on the work of four nineteenth-century singers that will be of much benefit to opera scholars. Hilary Poriss approaches her theme with engaging energy and perception."--Susan Rutherford, University of Manchester, author of The Prima Donna and Opera, 1815-1930 (2006) "Hilary Poriss invites us into a world where so many musical certainties seem to vanish, where the truths of Werktreue evaporate in the face of a culture of making and remaking opera, that the primo ottocento will never quite seem the same again."--Mark Everist, University of Southampton, author of Music Drama at the Paris Odéon, 1824-1828 (2002) and Giacomo Meyerbeer and Music Drama in Nineteenth-Century Paris (2005) "A long-awaited addition to the literature...The book reveals the value of understanding the performance practice of Italian opera in the 19th century and the important role of the singers, especially the prima donnas. If contemporary operatic practice considers reviving the use of insertion arias, Changing the Score will have accomplished its objective."--Times Higher Education "[A] marvelous book...thorough, full of material difficult to come by, accessibly written, free of jargon, and with interesting, provocative ideas." --Performance Practice Review "Insightful." --Opera "A pleasure to read, invoking a wide range of source material and provided with proper footnotes where footnotes ought to be. One for scholars and opera-goers alike." --The Musical Times