Proserpine, Goddess of the Underworld

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01/05/2017

The character of Proserpine in Saint-Saëns’s opera belongs to the great catalogue of powerful, doomed women without whom Romantic opera would be a very pale entertainment indeed. Some operatic women go to their deaths with their lovers, having transgressed a social code or a political command (Norma, Juliette, Aida); some are driven to suicide having been abandoned by their lovers (Didon, Sélica, Butterfly, Katerina Ismailova) or after committing adultery (Katya Kabanova); some adulteresses are murdered (Nedda); some women are killed by rejected lovers (Carmen); and some die innocent (Gilda, Desdemona).

CD-Book Camille Saint-Saëns. Proserpine (2017).