Bianca Castafiore
Bianca Castafiore | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Casterman (Belgium) |
First appearance | King Ottokar's Sceptre (1939) The Adventures of Tintin |
Created by | Hergé |
In-story information | |
Full name | Bianca Castafiore |
Partnerships | List of main characters |
Supporting character of | Tintin |
Bianca Castafiore (Italian pronunciation:
Her given name means "white" (feminine) in Italian, and her surname is Italian for "chaste flower". She first appeared in 1939, but from the 1950s, Hergé partially remodelled her after the Greek soprano Maria Callas.[1]
Character history
The comical Italian
When on tour, she usually travels with her piano accompanist,
Castafiore was once falsely imprisoned by the South American dictator
Character background and influences
Opera was one of Hergé's pet peeves. "Opera bores me, to my great shame. What's more, it makes me laugh," he once admitted. And so, perhaps not surprisingly, he created an archetypical singer who makes the reader laugh.[2]
Though la Castafiore is obviously Italian, her pet aria is from a French opera (Faust was composed by Charles Gounod) rather than the Verdi, Puccini, Bellini, or Donizetti one might have expected from a star of La Scala (although in The Castafiore Emerald, she mentions that her regular repertoire includes Rossini, Puccini, Verdi, and Gounod[3].) Faust, and this aria in particular, was among the most famous of all operas in Hergé's time. Furthermore, the choice of this aria is intentionally comic: Hergé depicts the aging, glamorous and utterly self-absorbed opera diva as Marguerite, the picture of innocence, taking delight in her own image in the mirror, with the oft-repeated quote: Ah, I laugh to see myself so beautiful in this mirror!.[4]
Bianca Castafiore is portrayed by Kim Stengel in the 2011 film
The asteroid 1683 Castafiore, discovered in 1950, is named after the character.
Kim Newman includes Castafiore in his alternative history novels Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles and Dracula Cha Cha Cha along with many other characters from other authors.
Bianca Castafiore is said to have been inspired by Hergé's own grandmother – Hergé believed that his father was an illegitimate son of the Belgian king Leopold II, but only his grandmother could have known the truth. He added subtle references such as operas that Bianca sang, referring to such stories.[6][7]
See also
References
Citations
- ^ "Non,la Castafiore ne chante pas faux, c'est la Callas en BD". Le Figaro. 20 September 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
- ^ "Les Aventures de Tintin - Bianca Castafiore". en.tintin.com. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
- ^ The Castafiore Emerald, p. 33.
- ^ "Hergé".
- ^ Kim Stengel at IMDb.com
- ^ Phillips, Sarah; Kingsley, Patrick (18 October 2011). "Tintin v Asterix : An interview". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
- ISBN 085323938X.
Sources
- ISBN 978-1-57467-059-2, issue 14 of opera biography series, foreword by George Lascelles
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-1-4052-3264-7.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0454-7.