Workers’ access to Swedish opera houses and concert halls, 1898–2019

In this study ticket prices to Swedish opera houses and symphony orchestra concerts are compared to wages during the 1898–2019 period. Both wages and ticket prices have increased continuously. The same kind of policy objectives concerning social inclusion of disadvantaged groups that were established in the beginning of the twentieth century is still proclaimed. The most favourable ticket pricing policies for buyers were used in the decades around the first national Cultural Policy Act from 1974. The study shows that ticket price levels have risen thereafter to a level much less favourable for low-income workers. Managements do use some price discrimination tactics. However, they do it uniformly for all events. They now focus on the promotion of special, ‘popular music’-based events as a response to social inclusion directives. The idea is that attending such performances will make visitors interested in the normal repertoire, as well. The choice of high-level ticket prices for the traditional content means that the standard audience remains monocultural.

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces

This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music’s role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious—even liturgical—music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII’s Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to “rally” with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the “secular” Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre’s famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

Instrumental Music and Urban Gravitas

Bands, chamber ensembles, and (especially) orchestral societies acted as indicators of the musical maturity of urban centers. Together with conservatoires and opera houses, orchestras formed centers of gravity often overseen by town councils as an interconnected unit or as a set of overlapping units. A relative lack of state regulation resulted in less focus on centralization and more on internal organization (including dealing with the progressive unionization of musicians), rivalries between concert societies, and distinctive patterns in repertory selection and programming. Nevertheless, a strong touring circuit for composer-conductors, the soft power of Parisian institutions (notably the Concerts Populaires of Jules Pasdeloup), and town council demands for standard repertory rather than new music, meant that regionalist particularism had little part to play. Angers, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nancy, and Toulouse provide case-studies of the intersections of local politics, concert administration and orchestral professionalization; Lyon, Lille, and Strasbourg emerge as centers with an especially distinctive mix of chamber and orchestral music, especially during the Third Republic.

Surtitling today: new uses, attitudes and developments

Surtitling has exerted a noticeable twofold effect on the opera world, in which it originated: it has contributed substantially to increasing the number of opera goers, making opera more accessible and “audience-friendly” and changing audiences’ expectations towards their operatic experience, which has in turn affected the reception of works in the audience ’s native language; secondly, it has brought about innovations in opera production, introducing new languages and pieces in opera houses. Besides, surtitles have now been put to new uses, as some theatre productions have adopted them enabling drama to travel more extensively. This article will focus on the changes surtitling has produced in the contexts using it, the impact of technical advances on its own production and reception, as well as on its new consumers and uses.

Musikalische Neubauten des 21. Jahrhunderts

This article deals with the global building boom of new concert halls and opera houses. Their spectacular architecture, often designed by the same star architects, obeys the general rules of globalized urban planning, acts as an indicator of urbanity, supports culturally driven urban renewal and attracts mass tourism. However, in this connection music plays a secondary role.

The Invention of an Opera House: The 1844 Teatro Victoria in Valparaiso, Chile

The 1844 Teatro Victoria in Valparaiso, Chile, can be considered the first purpose-built opera house in the Andean region of the Americas. Managed by impresario Pietro Alessandri, it became the centre of an early operatic scene in the South Pacific and a model for theatres built during the following decades. In this article, I discuss the Teatro Victoria as an opera house and the way in which it functioned on the borders of what was then a new global operatic scene. Latin American research on opera has focused mostly on singers and performances, rather than on the workings of the opera houses and the operatic scene. This article discusses the rationale behind the development of the Teatro Victoria project, some of the strategies underpinning its success and the notion of this particular opera house as a projection of certain ideas of ‘Italian culture’ and networks. The article shows, first, that the successful reception and appropriation of Italian opera in this period was not necessarily guaranteed, and it differed across the Americas. Second, that local brokers and host communities had key roles in shaping that reception, which can easily be perceived as a passive one when looked at only from the perspective of the singers or the music itself.

Performing transformation of the main role in the opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" by G. Donizetti

The purpose of the article is to trail regularities of vocal evolution which has formed the transition of stage operatic development from Rossini to Verdi and which has predetermined the performing tradition of Lucia‘s role in Donizetti’s opera “Lucia Lammermoor “(1835) by light coloratura soprano in the second half of XIX century until the present day. The methodology of the study is based on the intonation approach to interaction of music and spoken word in B. Asafiev”s school in Ukraine and which corresponds to the trend of hermeneutics research of the musicology study, as offered in works of L. Zima, E. Markova, A. Roshchenko. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by originality of historical approach to vocal intonation change which has been given birth by Italian romanticism in its dissociation from the R. Wagner approach and which has been accepted as leading approach in operatic performing tradition. This concept coincides with the author's independent analysis of the main heroine in Donizetti’s opera. Conclusion. The role of Lucia in Donizetti‘s opera with its particular style of libretto and manifestation of both femininity and outstanding power resulting in madness forms the parallel to preceding operatic images of hers as well as contemporary images in the days of Donizetti. The composer’s approach to F. Takkinardi-Persiani’s interpretation of this role, however, points to a presentiment of the replacement of "Rossini" soprano by lyrical coloratura in the operas of Gounod. Still this replacement drove the performing of the dramatic role of Lucia by "light" coloratura sopranos - from A. Patti to A. Galli-Kurci, from A. Nezhdanova to E. Miroshnichenko and last not least author of the essay in reference. It is sincerity and faithfulness to the beloved one rather than power of nature which determine the core values of Lucia, forming an analogy to heroines in psychodramas of V. Rebikov, whose genius as a treasure of the Ukraine South became a discovery at the musical theater nowadays. As a consequence ” Lucia di Lammermoor” continuously occupies a significant place in the repertoire of Ukrainian opera houses.

Pre-Sabine Room Acoustic Guidelines on Audience Rake, Stage Acoustics, and Dimension Ratios

Prior to Sabine’s work on the Fogg Art Museum and Boston Symphony Hall, several numerical guidelines had been developed and applied to the design of rooms with specific acoustic demands such as theatres, concert halls, and opera houses. Previous papers have discussed guidelines based on the following principles: voice directivity, which was employed in the design of at least 11 rooms; “echo theory”, which quantifies the perception threshold between direct sound and first order reflections in order to prevent echoes from occurring, aiding in the design of at least 7 rooms and leading to the first known use of an acoustic scale model; and notions of reverberation, which influenced the design of at least 14 rooms. This paper discusses three additional pre-Sabine numerical guidelines that were used in room acoustic design: (1) audience rake, (2) stage acoustics and proscenium design, and (3) length, width, and height ratios. The origin of these theories, as well as examples of rooms in which they were applied, are discussed and compared to current practices in room acoustic design.

Cultural capital and destination image: Insights from the Opera House tourist

Purpose This paper aims to identify the factors that foster an interest in opera and Opera Houses as a specific form of cultural capital and how the Opera House tourist constructs images of destinations from the cognitive, affective and conative dimensions. Design/methodology/approach A social constructivist methodology was adopted, and data was captured through online qualitative questionnaires from 226 Opera House tourists using a simple random sampling approach. These enquired about the development of their interest in opera and Opera Houses and the influence this exerts on their destination image formation process. Findings This form of cultural capital is mainly developed by exposure to art forms through family, social and further reference groups. Opera Houses project cognitive images of cosmopolitanism, affective images of social belonging and conative images of further opportunities to experience culture and leisure fostering destination loyalty and place attachment. Research limitations Productions of both opera and ballet are staged at Opera Houses, opening avenues for further research on either the opera or ballet tourist markets specifically using case studies across the ample spectrum of Opera Houses around the world. Practical implications In addition to the visual appeal and quality of cultural produce, tourism practitioners can use an Opera House’s projected affective images of social cohesion and togetherness to attract the Opera House tourist market. Opera Houses enrich a destination’s visual and cultural landscapes, cementing the need to preserve and promote their contributions to the destination’s cultural identity. Social implications This study highlights the need for cultural policy and audience development strategies that cultivate this type of cultural capital resulting in demand for and supply of cultural products that in turn stimulate the development of this niche cultural tourism market segment. Originality/value To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first study that has approached the Opera House tourist from the destination image formation context.