The Gilded Stage: A Social History of Opera

I have read a fair amount of opera history. This one is very well written, more in-depth than previous ones I have read. It contains a fair amount of (regular) history and while meaningful, may require a refresher on real historical periods and events, to put opera development in context. Might not be the best first book for someone new to opera.

This is a very well written and researched book, quite dense and full of information, some of which was new to me, even though I am a life-time opera fan. Having said all that, you might judge that it was difficult to read, but such is not the case! It is a fascinating read, and indeed most of it I read in bed before going to sleep and never had any trouble nodding off! My trouble was in stopping so I wasn't up half the night!

If you love opera and have any curiosity about its past, this history will both in inform you and provide lot of Wow-I-never-thought-of-that moments. It is neither dry nor academic in tone and yet awesome in scholarship. This is the freshman level course you would have enjoyed if you hadn't thought you hated opera when you were a freshman.

A big book for its genre but easy to read and leaves you yearning for more. Comprehensive, combining not-to-be-missed historic details with interesting tidbits to spark interest. It was already on my re-read list before I got halfway through.

It is a well written history of an art form of opera. Style is nice, light, informative but not didactic.Pleasant read.

This is a very good scholarly look at the birth, growth, and future of opera. True, there is a lot of repetition, but it's usually worth reading a second and third time. Lots of famous anecdotes are repeated (Handel versus his prima donnas, Nellie Melba and her fees, the rivalry that led to the creation of the Met Opera, wild-west cowboys showing their appreciation by shooting in the air), but there was enough new material to keep me reading. There are also lots of pictures, which always helps in a book of this size.As an opera queen (yes, our species is mentioned), I took exception to a few statements. Is Seattle really America's Bayreuth (p. 376)? Should a scholar really write of Abe Lincoln, "...apparently he attended the opera several times during the Civil War" (p. 368)? You're the scholar! Do the research! It took me a minute on Google search to find out that Lincoln attended performances of "Ballo," "Martha," and "Faust." I found it very bizarre that Monteverdi was spelled "Monterverdi" twice on p. 308. And I can't imagine what the word "sssaawhat" on p. 119 was supposed to be.The book is crammed with interesting and vivid detail. I never tire of reading about the habits of the wealthy, using their opera boxes as dining rooms, game rooms, and gossip centers. To me, the best chapters involved Wagner, Hitler, and the accusations of collaboration by certain famous singers and conductors. None of it was really new to me, but it was good to encounter all of it again concentrated in one chapter.The chapter on the Sydney Opera house is interesting, as are the mentions of opera productions in locales that we don't normally hear about (Thailand and its "Rheingold"). I can recommend this book for both newcomers and know-it-alls. There will be something of interest on almost every page.

This is a fascinating and comprehensive review of the social history of opera from its Renaissance beginnings to the present day. It is extensively illustrated and annotated and despite the scholarly content it remains very readable throughout. Any opera lover with an interest in how the art form has developed will relish this work and will learn a great deal from its pages. Thoroughly recommended, and at a bargain price.

i bought this book to widen my understanding of opera.It does that very well.

This is for a birthday present hopefully they will like this

Daniel Snowman suggests in his introduction that most books on opera are musicological and pay only perfunctory attention to the social context, while most books on social or cultural history give rather short shrift to opera. This is certainly as good a one-volume survey of the social history of opera as one could wish for, frequently sparkling and full of pen-portraits and anecdotes. It is also beautifully and lavishly illustrated.When opera began in Mantua in 1607 with Monteverdi's `Orfeo', it was an entertainment for courtiers; and although it retained this aspect for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, it was already very soon after its beginning that it also went outside the royal or princely courts. Opera houses were built in many cities and a wider public became involved, and so opera became commercial, first in Italy and soon all over Europe. Partly this was because operas have always been expensive to produce, and even princely patrons admitted the public to help them to defray at least part of the cost for something they enjoyed and that added to their renown. Composers were originally court servants - Haydn always dressed in the Esterhazy livery - but gradually they became either partly or mainly freelance. Snowman shows that Handel, though he received pensions from the Court, had much of his work paid for by public subscription; but it is Mozart whom Snowman credits with the breakthrough of leaving aristocratic employment and venturing to become freelance. This reflected a more exalted view by composers of their own status.In any case the French Revolution struck a heavy blow at aristocratic patronage, at the same time as it changed the nature of the public (which actually began to behave more decorously during performances than had been the case in the past, with members of the audience often arriving late, chatting during the music, etc.)In the 19th century orchestras and choruses became larger; the greatest singers, and later the greatest conductors, were given near god-like status as Art itself - and worship of Wagner's music - became a kind of religion. There is a fascinating chapter ("Prima la Donna") interpreting in social and psychological terms the opera-goers' reactions to the overheated drama that is so often portrayed on the stage.By the middle of the 19th century opera, sometimes in truncated form, had spread to every continent, and touring companies of singers undertook the most arduous journeys to perform in the cities and even before rough gold diggers in America and Australia. Snowman gives plenty of space to the United States, and we have the story of the great opera houses in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. But even opera in Thailand, Japan and South Korea gets a look in.Snowman goes into all the hazards involved in opera production. There were financial risks (opera productions hardly ever brought in as much money as they cost); the rivalry of several opera houses in Paris, London, Prague and New York was fierce; and one of the most serious dangers in the 19th century were fires caused by gas lighting: virtually all the great opera centres in Europe suffered from some 11,000 major fires during the century: at the time the average life of a theatre was around 18 years.Snowman is good at describing the impact of technological advances (recordings, broadcasting, film and television) had on bringing opera to an ever wider public, making the famous stars even more famous and interesting many more people to going to live performances. And the last chapter speculates on what technological advances there are likely to be in the future.In the 19th century some operas had given expression to liberal and nationalist feeling, evading censorship by setting their plots in the distant past. During the First World War this nationalism would lead countries to ban operas, composers or performers from belligerents on the other side. There is an excellent passage about new works being staged during the Weimar Republic at the Kroll opera house, avant garde both in their music and in their staging, while in the early days of the Soviet Union familiar operas were being given new ideological interpretations. Afterwards, under Stalin, who took a personal interest in opera, any innovation was crushed and opera, like all the other arts, were put into a Socialist Realist strait-jacket which brooked no bourgeois `formalism'.Hitler and Mussolini were also devotees of opera, and both were determined to make it serve their state and their ideology. Toscanini left Italy in disgust. In Nazi Germany the cult of the German genius in music culminated in the worship of Wagner, whose family were ardent Nazis. All Jewish composers, conductors and performers were dismissed. Some great figures like Klemperer, Ebert and Busch left of their own accord, and Snowman discusses the famous artists who stayed to serve the regime.Ebert and Busch were later instrumental in the creation of Glyndebourne and contributed to that post-war renaissance of British world-class opera houses in which Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells, helped by government subsidies, also played such a major role.In one of the last chapters Snowman shows how a canon of operas emerged: in the early days of opera, composers and opera houses were expected to produce many new works. Now, though new works are of course produced, the greatest and most frequent successes are the staging of a relatively small number of canonical works. These, however, are open to varied approaches, ranging from productions aiming at scholarly authenticity in the music (and in the language, too - which leads to an interesting discussion of surtitles) to radically unhistorical staging by innovative directors.The last chapter shows how since the 1980s and 1990s governments in East and West have cut down drastically on subsidies to the arts in general and to opera in particular. Opera faces great challenges in the future, but Snowman feels it will adapt, as it has done throughout its history.

Very good