La prima donna Marilyn

This essay tries to explore the ways opera invents personae of Marilyn Monroe. Actually, the star can be regarded as an equivalent of a prima donna of the 19th century or a lyrical heroine. Despite its mythical tendencies opera could offer destituent processes able to deconstruct all the narratives explaining Monroe’s death and to make it not a defeat but an irreducible event. Besides opera singing will be considered as the expressive form of the impossible identity. Contemporary productions, Ferrero’s Marilyn and de Raaff’s Waiting for Miss Monroe, as well as Warlikowski’s staging of Janáček’s Věc Makropulos will be here analyzed.