This chapter examines the first Argentine productions of Verdi’s Otello, including one starring tenor Francesco Tamagno. Expectations in Buenos Aires surrounding the Otello productions were heightened by the new media landscape and by the city’s changing urban and demographic environment, including plans for a new Teatro Colón. These shifts also generated scrutiny of the layers of cultural, geographical and technological distance between Argentina and Italy. Tamagno’s Otello emerged as a sticking point, however: an element considered fundamental to Verdi’s conception, yet the tenor’s powerful voice appeared to resist future reproduction. The material complexities of Otello as a work in performance and the opera’s depiction of a flawed military hero ultimately intersected in the figure of ‘Tamagno-Otello’, I argue: a figure poised between a heroic Italian past and a mechanical future, crystallising wider debates over operatic mediation in the Argentine capital. Turning to Italy I consider how Argentine perceptions of Tamagno’s uniqueness and of Verdi’s Italian status were ultimately internalised, pointing to the intertwining of national mythologies with new technological media.

This introduction presents a historical and conceptual overview of the monograph, particularly the longer history of discourses connecting Italian opera, Italy and italianità, and ideas surrounding the Old World and the New World. Milan and Liberal Italy (1861/70–1922) are introduced first in the context of Italy’s unification and the wider social and technological transformations that defined the Second Industrial Revolution. New York and Buenos Aires are then considered together, exploring their changing position in the global operatic circuit from the 1870s onwards and the theatrical infrastructure in both cities, before the methodological approach of the monograph and an overview of the individual chapters are outlined.

Esteban Echeverría (1805–1851) was born in Buenos Aires before the May 25, 1810, revolution, but was educated in the liberal environment of Bernardino Rivadavia’s government, which sent him to Paris to further his education. Upon return in 1830, he saw the rise of Juan Manuel de Rosas and became an opponent of his regime in both a literary and a political sense. He along with others founded the Asociación de Mayo in 1837, which caused his exile in Montevideo, where he wrote the compelling ‘El matadero’ (The Slaughterhouse) and published the Dogma socialista, from which the current selection is taken. The “socialism” of the title might be somewhat deceptive, in that Echeverría’s program contained the standard tenets of liberal democracy. His thoughts on the rule of law, while not entirely original, became a powerful weapon against dictatorship, one that was seen as applicable well beyond his native land and became a classic of Spanish American political thought.

This chapter studies Pablo Neruda’s stay in Buenos Aires in 1933 through an urban perspective. His network is also considered, including Sara Tornú, Norah Lange, Oliverio Girondo, and Federico García Lorca. In a metropolis as cosmopolitan as Buenos Aires was at the beginning of the twentieth century, foreigners could quickly feel at home thanks to the existence of a solid network of sociability that facilitated the integration of the newcomers. For Neruda, who came with the ease that an official position allowed him, it was the possibility of quickly accessing already existing spaces both of expression and recognition, and of sociability (meetings at cafes, private social gatherings, homages). An analysis of Neruda’s urban footprint and his network reveals what a metropolis like Buenos Aires could bring to the intellectuals, especially to Neruda, who was starting then his international career. This urban perspective is thus intended to be a new methodological approach to the study of Pablo Neruda’s works.

Beatriz Sarlo’s Escena de la vida postmoderna represents a turning point in literary studies, cultural studies, and media studies in Argentina. Originally published in 1994, it was a major, influential intervention on cultural and media questions that had not been central in literary studies, written by a well-known literary scholar. It represents a shift from “the book” to “the city” as a site of analysis and interpretation of cultural forms. Part urban critic, part flâneur, Sarlo is intrigued by the changing public spaces of Buenos Aires amid a new phase of late capitalism, marked by new forms of consumerism, visual culture, and entertainment. She dissects the meanings and dynamics of cultural expressions that transcend and challenge the power of the written word, and unearths a new Buenos Aires, increasingly dominated by screens, public gatherings in private spaces, youth subcultures, and art forms that echo new developments. The book stands as both a call to fellow literary scholars to foreground nonliterary forms of cultural production and engagement in their work, and as a representation of an important point of reference to “demediatize” the study of communication and meaning-making in order to comprehend the significance of public and popular urban sites.

Although Spanish-speaking lands are often imagined as lands of sexual intolerance, Buenos Aires is better characterized by ineffectual repression and by its recent celebration of sexual diversity. In this chapter we analyze sexuality in Buenos Aires against the backdrop of economic, socio-demographic, cultural, and political transformations that often undermined the regulations of authorities. The decades between 1880, when Buenos Aires became the capital, and the overthrow of President Juan Perón in 1955 were crucial for the formation of modern Argentina and constitute its focus. We begin with some preceding historical trends in the colonial and early independent era, and end with a succinct analysis of a few salient trends after 1955, especially those leading to Buenos Aires becoming a leader of LGBTQ+ rights in the twenty-first century. We discuss immigration, class differences in sexual behaviours, commercialized sex, sexual diversity with marica and homosexual identities, the rise of family sociability, and the push for sexual ‘normalcy’.

This chapter turns to the legendary “Road to Buenos Aires,” which was widely considered the most significant trafficking route of the era. This case study illustrates how both coercion and choice functioned in the discourse and practice of migratory prostitution. When French women made official statements to the police, they strategically employed themes common to the trafficking narrative, including coercion, victimhood, and abuse. Their personal correspondence with family, in contrast, expresses how moments of both exploitation and agency punctuated their lives. Letters describe tender ties with mothers, sisters, and goddaughters; how poverty and unhappiness marked their existence in France; the everyday trials of poor migrants abroad; and expressions of wonder at the first ocean crossing. The lives of French women oscillated between moments of profound vulnerability and perceived opportunity, as reflected in their experiences of migrating and selling sex.

This chapter is the third of three to consider Puccini’s travels, both for work and leisure. It examines Puccini’s travels beyond Europe, primarily to South and North America. South America was a vital outpost of Italian operatic culture, with a large expatriate Italian population. The chapter discusses how Puccini’s works were exported to the major opera houses of the region and his travels to supervise performances in Argentina and Uruguay. Drawing upon Puccini’s correspondence, the author pays detailed attention to the life Puccini would have experienced on board ship, travelling in some luxury, unlike the many poor Italians who were migrating to the Americas for economic reasons – including the composer’s own brother, Michele Puccini. The chapter also discusses Puccini’s travels to New York, where he could not speak the language and was troubled by the weather. The author argues that the vast hotels and ships encountered by Puccini on these trips had a bearing on the sense of epic space in some of his later operas, notably La fanciulla del West. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Puccini’s tour of Egypt in 1908.

This chapter addresses the evolution of the crime fiction genre in Latin America by examining the relationship between three of the continent’s major cities and three historical moments. The following case studies chosen are: Buenos Aires in the stories of Seis problemas para Don Isidro Parodi (Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, 1942) by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares; Havana in Armando Cristóbal Pérez’s novel La ronda de los rubies (The Ring of Rubies, 1973); and Mexico City in Días de combate (Days of Combat, 1976) by Paco Ignacio Taibo II. The chapter traces a textual trajectory from Borges and Bioy’s parodic games with the English models of mystery fiction to Taibo’s scathing national questioning of the Mexican neo-crime fiction, passing through Cristóbal’s politically committed and Cuban revolutionary crime fiction. That trajectory demonstrates the flexibility of the crime fiction genre, which has allowed it to branch out and adapt to the literary needs of different authors and contexts in the period between 1930 and 1980 in Latin American literature.

Legal documents of the late colonial period enable us to understand how this agency was negotiated in domestic and public spaces and how black women became key protagonists in their struggle for respect and survival. This essay examines the case of two female slaves who lived in the port city of Santa María de los Angeles de Buenos Aires who were victims of physical abuse by two male acquaintances: resulting in death in one case and in a state of coma in the other. This chapter discusses how the recollection of events by both female slaves and their respective assailants transitioned from the public space to the official legal space of power. It analyzes how both women, prior to the end results of the physical abuse they suffered, fought for their right to be believed and respected especially when it came to their material bodies. In the context of my discussion, the body is understood as a vehicle for thought and action while simultaneously implicated in power relations and social order and disorder.

This chapter addresses the evolution of the crime fiction genre in Latin America by examining the relationship between three of the continent’s major cities and three historical moments. The following case studies chosen are: Buenos Aires in the stories of Seis problemas para Don Isidro Parodi (Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, 1942) by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares; Havana in Armando Cristóbal Pérez’s novel La ronda de los rubies (The Ring of Rubies, 1973); and Mexico City in Días de combate (Days of Combat, 1976) by Paco Ignacio Taibo II. The chapter traces a textual trajectory from Borges and Bioy’s parodic games with the English models of mystery fiction to Taibo’s scathing national questioning of the Mexican neo-crime fiction, passing through Cristóbal’s politically committed and Cuban revolutionary crime fiction. That trajectory demonstrates the flexibility of the crime fiction genre, which has allowed it to branch out and adapt to the literary needs of different authors and contexts in the period between 1930 and 1980 in Latin American literature.

Carmen made its debut in the Spanish Americas when the local networks of opera were at their apex, with a constant stream of singers from Europe and a desire for new repertoires outside the main staples of Italian opera. In this chapter, considering sources from across the region, we discuss four layers of Carmen’s reception in the Americas. First, the reception of the opera beyond the stage, in the form of vocal scores, arrangements for military bands and isolated numbers. Second, the perception of Carmen as a French opera, and the way it served as a vehicle for French opera companies in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Third, the idea of Carmen as Spanish, and how different countries considered that hispanicity as part of their own culture and theatrical expectations. Finally, we discuss how the habanera in Carmen was perceived as part of a larger contemporary debate on the transatlantic popularity of the habanera as a musical genre, its origins, ethnicity and its moral and musical character.