Editorial

This editorial gives an overview of my research into portraits of, and celebrity cults around, eighteenth-century opera singers. The findings of this research were presented at the National Portrait Gallery's public conference linked to the exhibition 'The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons' (Oct 2011-8 Jan 2012) and as a paper presented at the 77th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society in San Francisco in 2011.