The Lives and Voices of Professional Female Singers

Abstract

This chapter explores the meaning of the professional female voice through the experiences of three singers from the 1830s and ’40s: Adelaide Kemble, Clara Novello, and Marianne Lincoln. It continues the argument of Chapters 2 and 3 by exploring how contemporary divisions over the sound of femininity affected the ways singers chose to use their voices. Their letters and diaries show how they were caught between a desire to develop their professional technique and artistry, and an equally strong anxiety that, in doing so, they might contravene feminine norms expected by important sections of the public and even by family and friends. These case studies thus expose the ongoing tensions between the ideals of the professional singer and of femininity in British musical life, but they also indicate that, through complex, sometimes agonising negotiation, it was increasingly possible for these women to develop successful careers as professional female musical artists.