diva
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Diva - plural divas , also less common divas - comes from the feminine form of the Latin divus " divine ".
A diva is a celebrated singer, a woman with outstanding talent in the opera world and beyond in the fields of theater, cinema and pop music.
In Roman antiquity, the attributes divus and diva were only given to gods or goddesses, including the early Roman emperors (since Augustus ) who were declared gods .
The term has been applied to an important woman on stage since the 18th century, mostly for opera singers ( sopranos ), but also for character actresses. Until the 19th century it was an honorable nickname for famous singers ( prima donnas ), especially Italian singers. Maria Malibran (1808–1836, “La Malibran”) is considered to be the first opera diva . When the young singer was buried (after a riding accident, she refused to have her broken bones treated by a doctor), 50,000 fans lined the streets.
The expression became common in the German language in the second half of the 19th century and was also used for German-speaking artists, mostly for outstanding “unique” women who are aware of their “uniqueness” and extensively celebrate this role. Thus, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf dubbed as "Diva", Greta Garbo even directly as the Divine . The compound film diva was particularly widespread in the 1920s, but since the middle of the same century it has taken a back seat to Star .
Often the term “diva” is given a negative rating in the sense of arrogance in a gender-neutral way , if people indicate their given or supposed aloofness through “aloofness” due to particular awareness of their environment. The Duden, which introduces the concept since 1887, identifies as a further meaning "one who by special sensitivity by eccentric airs o. Ä. stands out ". Sometimes such a divinity is also associated with moodiness and disregard or even harassment of the personal environment. In sports reporting , the term moody diva is mostly used in connection with athletes or clubs, especially in football, whose game is subject to strong fluctuations in quality and "moodiness" that are unpredictable for the outside viewer.
In wrestling , the term is used without a negative term as a name for the female show stars.
literature
- Elisabeth Bronfen , Barbara Straumann : Diva A History of Admiration Schirmer and Mosel Verlag, Munich 2002 ISBN 978-3-88814-308-3 , 232 pages
- Elisabeth Bronfen: The Diva , in: Stephan Moebius and Markus Schroer : Divas, Hackers, Speculators. Social figures of the present , Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2010, pp. 81–97.
- Rebecca Grotjahn , Dörte Schmidt , Thomas Seedorf (eds.): Diva - The staging of the superhuman woman: Interdisciplinary investigations into a cultural phenomenon of the 19th and 20th centuries, Edition Argus, 2011 ISBN 978-3931264574 , 280 pages
Individual evidence
- ^ Etymological dictionary of German according to Pfeifer, online at DWDS , accessed on February 16, 2012
- ↑ Diva on Duden.de, accessed 16 February 2012
