Francesca Vella

Assistant Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

I was born and raised in Italy, where I studied Art, Music and the Performing Arts at the University of Florence, and piano at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. I then moved to the UK to complete my postgraduate studies at King’s College London. Before joining Northumbria, I was a Junior Research Fellow (St John’s College) and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (Faculty of Music) at the University of Cambridge. I’ve also taught at Bristol, Oxford Brookes and Goldsmiths.

Email Francesca

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

opera, particularly:
- voice/singers/singing
- staging practices
- touring and mobility
- critical editing
19th-century musical cultures
global and transnational histories of music
sound studies
Italian cultural studies

My research considers histories and technologies of operatic performance across the 19th and early 20th centuries. I’ve published articles on Verdi and Italian nation-building, operatic mobility, vocal celebrity culture, early radio, and interwar staging practices. My first monograph, Networking Operatic Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2021) explores how networks of opera production and critical discourse enabled by new transport and communication technologies shaped Italian cultural identities during the late Risorgimento.

I’m currently working on two major projects. First, a new monograph that, by bridging opera, theatre and performance studies, reassesses early 20th-century Italian (and European) staging practices, foregrounding the creative contributions of historically marginalised figures—such as prompters, set designers/builders and prop makers—in the decades preceding the emergence of modern opera direction. Second, I am preparing a critical edition of Donizetti's Otto mesi in due ore (1827) for Ricordi.

My interest in sonic and auditory cultures led to the establishment of the ‘Sounding (Out) 19th-Century Italy’ research network (2019-20), funded by a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award. I was also a founding member of the Leverhulme network ‘Re-imagining italianità: Opera and Musical Culture in Transnational Perspective’ (2016-19), based at UCL and with collaborators at Cambridge, Brown (USA) and Campinas (Brazil).

I currently serve on the Advisory Board of Durham's Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies; I am a fouding member of the Northern OPera Research Network; and I lead Northumbria's university-wide Music Research Group.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Between Art and Craft: Operatic Set Design in 1930s Florence, Vella, F. 7 Aug 2025, In: Cambridge Opera Journal
Before and Besides Werktreue: (Re)inventing Operatic Staging at the 1930s Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Vella, F. 1 Jun 2025, In: Twentieth-Century Music
Networking Operatic Italy, Vella, F. 29 Nov 2021
De(Railing) Mobility: Opera, Stasis, and Locomotion on Late-Nineteenth-Century Italian Tracks, Vella, F. 23 Oct 2018, In: Opera Quarterly
Jenny Lind, Voice, Celebrity, Vella, F. 1 May 2017, In: Music and Letters
Sounding (Out) Nineteenth-Century Italy, Vella, F. 1 Dec 2025, In: Nineteenth-Century Music Review
Broadcasting the Italian Voice’s Broadcasting: Opera and Italy on the Air, 1920s-1930s, Vella, F. 8 Aug 2022, In: Journal of Modern Italian Studies
Tamagno Otherwise: Verdi, ‘Ora e per sempre addio’ (Otello), Otello, Act II, Vella, F. 1 Jul 2016, In: Cambridge Opera Journal
Milan, Simon Boccanegra and the Late-Nineteenth-Century Operatic Museum, Vella, F. 2016, In: Verdi Perspektiven
Bridging Divides: Verdi’s Requiem in Post-Unification Italy, Vella, F. 2015, In: Journal of the Royal Musical Association

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Northern Opera Research Network Study Day 2025
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: BFE/RMA Research Students' Conference 2023
Membership of board: Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies (Durham) (External organisation) 2023
Membership of committee: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Music Studies Network (External organisation) 2022
Editorial work: Editio Musica (Publisher) 2019

PGR Supervision

Borbala Papp ‘The Carl Rosa Opera Company (1873-1960): Provincial Experiences and Performance Practices of a British Touring Opera Troupe’ Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
Borbala Papp ‘The Carl Rosa Opera Company (1873-1960): Provincial Experiences and PerformancePractices of a British Touring Opera Troupe’ Start Date: 01/10/2025

Further Information

Teaching

I teach a range of modules on European music (c.1750-present) from historical, critical and analytical perspectives. Recent UG options I've designed and delivered include 'Musicals: Politics, Performance and Popular Culture', 'Opera on Screen: From Silent Film to YouTube', and 'Opera in 18th- and 19th-century London'. At PGT level, I've taught modules and seminars on sound studies, voice, musical mobilities, music and the middlebrow, digital musicology, music and the environment, and research methodolodies.

I'm always happy to discuss dissertation ideas with UG, MA and PhD students, so please feel free to get in touch.

Public engagement

I regularly write programme notes for UK and foreign opera companies (Royal Ballet and Opera, Glyndebourne Tour, Scottish Opera, Liceu Opera Barcelona), CD liner notes (Opera Rara), performance reviews (bachtrack.com) and general readership articles (Opera magazine).

In 2025, I curated a free public exhibition, Prompters: The Unsung Heroes of Theatre and Opera, for Newcastle's Lit&Phil Library, supported by the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust.

Qualifications