11. American Opera

2019 ◽  
pp. 360-402
Keyword(s):  
American Opera

The American Opera Company

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine K. Preston
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
General Public ◽  
English Language ◽  
General Lack ◽  
American Opera ◽  
National Opera ◽  
Public Society

This chapter focuses on the philanthropist Jeannette Thurber, who founded the American (National) Opera Company (1885) to encourage high-caliber performances of continental operas translated into English. Her company was heavily subsidized by New York society and supported by establishment music critics. But both Thurber and her musical director Theodore Thomas misunderstood the American opera audience, and mounted serious works designed for cultural uplift, to the neglect of Italian and French operas that were popular among the general public. Society members were not interested in English-language opera because it was not sufficiently exclusive; middle-class operagoers were repelled both by the trappings of elitism and the expensive tickets. A close reinterpretation of the company’s failure reveals much about American operatic taste; it is also important in the context of this book because scholars have blamed the company’s spectacular demise on a general lack of support for English-language opera.

The Inward Turn: American Opera Revisits America’s Past

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Hutcheon ◽  
Michael Hutcheon
Keyword(s):  
American Opera

Woolfian Afterlives

2021 ◽  
pp. 621-640
Author(s):  
Laura Smith
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
North American ◽  
International Study ◽  
Landscape Painting ◽  
American Opera ◽  
Judy Chicago ◽  
Dominick Argento

This chapter explores Virginia Woolf’s catalysing role for artists working in non-verbal media, including the visual arts, music, dance, and design. An analysis of Woolf’s impact beyond the medium of her writing allows for a trans-historic and international study of her legacy, charting her influence from, for example, landscape painting in Cornwall to Japanese Butoh; and from North American opera to the Ballet Russes. The chapter will trace many of the vital and fluid connections between Woolf, her contemporaries, and those whose work she has inspired. In the visual arts, case studies include: Sara Barker, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, Judy Chicago, Aleana Egan, Rebecca Horn, Laura Owens, and Patti Smith. The music of Edith Sitwell, Ethel Smyth, Dominick Argento, Indigo Girls, The Smiths, and Patrick Wolf is discussed alongside dance by Lydia Lopokova, Wayne McGregor, and Setsuko Yamada.

Unveiling Modernity: Verdi’s America and the Unification of Italy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Körner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
New World ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
American Opera ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Un Ballo In Maschera

This chapter examines the creation of Giuseppe Verdi's American opera Un ballo in maschera, first performed around the time of Italy's Second War of Independence, in 1859. Un ballo in maschera was the first modern Italian opera set across the Atlantic. The history of its creation and the subsequent debate around it serves as a classic example of the cultural imagination surrounding life in the New World as well as the wider social impact of political ideas in nineteenth-century Italy. The chapter first considers Un ballo's close connection to the Unification of Italy before offering a reading of the opera. It also explores how Verdi depicted America in his opera and how his depiction relates to Italian debates about America at the time. Finally, it assesses the impact of censorship on the plot of Un ballo.

Some Musical (and Other) Readings

Oklahoma! ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 171-212
Author(s):  
Tim Carter
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
American Opera ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
The Way

The “landmark” status of Oklahoma! prompts examining it through a series of case studies in terms of how musicals work in dramatic terms (not least given their inherent lack of verisimilitude); the problems of reconciling convention with innovation; the way the show plays with pastoral tropes; its connection with notions of Manifest Destiny; the treatment of characters according to gender and ethnicity; the role of Oklahoma! as wartime propaganda; and the question of how close the Broadway musical might come to being a form of “American opera.” These issues reveal the cultural work that the show did in 1943, and still does today.

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