Democracy at the opera
Subtitle: music, theater, and culture in New York City, 1815-60
By: Karen Ahlquist.
Series: Music in American life
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
Subjects: Opera -- New York (State) -- New York; Music -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Music -- Social aspects
Description: Was there opera - and just what was it like - in New York City before the advent of the Metropolitan Opera Company? In exploring these questions, Karen Ahlquist describes the social, cultural, economic, and esthetic factors that led to the assimilation of Italian opera - a complex, expensive genre of elitist reputation - into New York's business oriented community, with its English cultural heritage and sacred republican traditions.

In her lively description of opera as few today can imagine it, Ahlquist considers Jacksonian-era efforts to create a polite social setting, the influence of a socially based clash between "respectability" and broad public access, and the role of music in shaping, not just reflecting, social and cultural life.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: English opera as popular culture : The Beggar's opera tradition; title: Nature's new mirror : English opera and theatrical reform; title: Culture and commerce : the first opera nights in New York; title: "Directly from the heart" : English opera and the power of music in the age of sentiment; title: The failure that flourished : early New York opera houses; title: The new Italian opera and its reception; title: Opera and the "higher order of composition."