The Austrian Osteopathic Practitioners Estimates and RAtes (OPERA): a cross-sectional survey

Background: Since the previous survey of the osteopathic profession in Austria was almost a decade ago, an update was necessary. The Osteopathic Practitioners Estimates and RAtes (OPERA) project was developed as a Europe-based survey, whereby an updated profile of the profession not only provides new data for Austria, but also allows for a clear comparison with other European countries. Methods: A voluntary, online-based, closed-ended survey was distributed across Austria in the period between April and August 2020. The original English OPERA-questionnaire, composed of 52 questions in seven sections, was formally translated in German and adapted to the Austrian situation. Recruitment was performed through social-media and an e-based campaign.Results: The survey was completed by 338 individuals, of which 239 (71%) were female, and the median age was 40-49 years. Almost all respondents had preliminary healthcare training, mainly in physiotherapy (72%). The majority of respondents were self-employed (88%) and working as sole practitioners (54%). The median number of consultations per week was 21-25 and the majority of respondents scheduled 46-60 minutes for each consultation (69%). The most commonly used diagnostic techniques were: palpation of position/structure, palpation of tenderness and visual inspection. The most commonly used treatment techniques were cranial, visceral and articulatory/mobilisation techniques. The majority of patients estimated by respondents consulted an osteopath for musculoskeletal complaints mainly localised in the lumbar and cervical region. Although the majority of respondents experience a strong osteopathic identity, only a small proportion (17%) advertise themselves exclusively as osteopaths. Conclusions: This study represents the first published document to determine the characteristics of the osteopathic practitioners in Austria using large, national data. It provides new information on where, how, and by whom osteopathic care is delivered. The information provided may contribute to the evidence used by stakeholders and policy makers for the future regulation of the profession in Austria.

‘More sensual Delights’

There is a palpable difference between Addison’s stimulating and thoughtful remarks on literature or the visual arts and his scattered, unconvincing, and dismissive comments on music. His unease about music, the chapter argues, stemmed from ignorance, disappointment, and a tendency to link musical pleasure with secret or illicit sexual pleasure. By basing his aesthetic theory on sight, Addison was able to make contact with scientific discourse, indirectly express his political ideology, and avoid extensive discussions of music, the art about which he knew least. His attempt at an English opera (Rosamond, 1707) failed, and the libretto does not suggest that Addison gave much thought to what it might be like to set or sing his words. As a young man, he wrote two St Cecilia odes, closely following the conventions established in Dryden’s ode for 1687. Printed in the Annual miscellany for 1694 is his translation of an episode from Ovid that purports to explain ‘the secret Cause’ that makes the River Salmacis weaken those who bathe in it. Something about the power of music, its emotional and sensual influence on the body and the mind, was evidently connected in his mind with secret pleasures that he did not wish to acknowledge or reveal. Same-sex love was probably among such pleasures. While there is no definitive evidence that Addison had strong homosexual feelings, or that he acted upon them, there is reason to believe that he associated such feelings with music, an association which shaped his consciousness and therefore his aesthetics.

Bringing Female Spectacle to the “Western Country,” 1835–1840

This chapter connects the growth of the American starring system in the 1830s to the expansion of trans-Appalachian markets and the popularization of new female-centered repertoire from Europe. The national reach of “big stars” like Ellen Tree and Celeste Elliott created the context in which women and girls pursued starring careers by introducing new breeches roles in melodramas and English opera and dance featuring female spectacle. The case study of St. Louis, Missouri, demonstrates how western theaters depended upon recruiting stars even as managers and critics remained ambivalent about some of this new entertainment. Although they did not always enjoy professional autonomy, starring women ensured the economic viability of western theater while using these markets to expand their repertoire and renown.

The Survival of English Opera in Nineteenth-Century Concert Life

This chapter shows how selections from English operas composed between the 1730s and the 1790s—chiefly by Thomas Arne, Charles Dibdin, William Shield, and Stephen Storace—became standard repertory in concerts throughout the nineteenth century. Such pieces were performed at benefit concerts organized by individual musicians and at events given by local ensembles that blended songs with virtuoso pieces and orchestral numbers. Critical commentary on such songs justified their aesthetic legitimacy as groups separate from pieces deemed part of classical music. By 1900, songs by Arne, Storace, and even Dibdin were often sung in recitals along with German lieder and pieces from seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Italy or France. The solidity of this tradition contributed to the revival of the operas themselves from the 1920s, most often Arne’s Artaxerxes (1762). This chapter is paired with Rutger Helmers’s “National and international canons of opera in tsarist Russia.”

National and International Canons of Opera in Tsarist Russia

This chapter explores the tension between national and international operatic repertories in the case of nineteenth-century Russia. It discusses conceptual problems associated with the notion of a national canon, which is frequently conceived of in a binary opposition to an international or universal one. The discussion of Russian musical life charts the reception of foreign repertories as well as the canonization of Mikhail Glinka’s operas Zhizn’ za tsarya (A life for the tsar, 1836) and Ruslan i Lyudmila (Ruslan and Lyudmila, 1842), and concludes by showing how the tensions between foreign and domestic works played out differently in critical and historical writing from the way they did in the performing repertory. This chapter is paired with William Weber’s “The survival of English opera in nineteenth-century concert life.”