Juan Arturo Andrade Mendoza - Les Symboles Sexuels Anciens (1) : Lina Cavalieri

Les Symboles Sexuels Anciens (1) : Lina Cavalieri

Created on Friday, 17. July 2009.

The menfolk of the world worshipped Cavalieri’s beauty, blazoned all over the place by photographers. Her visage adorned hundreds of magazine covers and postcards in hundreds of stores all over Europe. Opera cognoscenti beguiled by her charming aspect and daring histrionics readily pardoned her vocal shortcomings and flocked to see her perform.

It is hard to say in all certainty what ensured Lina Cavalieri her place in history, whether it was her fabled beauty or her dramatic talent. Most likely of all it was a special sort of charisma together with a good measure of ambition and perseverance. Before the age of twenty she had already been touring all over Europe, rounding up an extensive following in spite of her limited vocal capacity.

What with her immense popularity she also led such an active social life that it makes one wonder how she managed so many things at once.

Obviously, Cavalieri was one of the first supermodels in history. Her beauty and growing popularity won her the attention of some of the greatest opera singers of the time. Great Italian baritone Mattia Battistini fell hard for Lina’s rather modest soprano and strongly advised her to go in for an opera career. A spell of serious voice training fitted Cavalieri to collaborate with the operatic luminaries of the day, and even though her vocal performance was still merely fair-to- middling, her beauty and expressive acting invariably carried the audience. Jules Massenet, the author of the opera Tais, once observed after Cavalieri’s flawed rendition of the leading part that her beauty entitled her to strike a false note every now and then. Men adored her while women kept tabs on her looks. Lina’s beauty and mass appeal redeemed all her errors and shortcomings. Through the medium of photography Lina Cavalieri became one of the first sex symbols, with her beauty and sex appeal parlayed into a trademark. It is hard to say today whether she could have made it so big without all that hype. Perhaps she would have remained a low-profile chanteuse. But…Indeed, beauty is a mighty force.