The opera fanatic
Subtitle: ethnography of an obsession
By: Claudio E. Benzecry
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press; University Of Chicago Press; University of Chicago Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
ISBN-13: 9780226043401; 9780226043425
Description: Though some dismiss opera as old-fashioned, it shows no sign of disappearing from the world's stage. So why do audiences continue to flock to it? Opera lovers are an intense lot, Benzecry discovers in his look at the fanatics who haunt the legendary Colón Opera House in Buenos Aires.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: An opera house for the "Paris of South America"; title: "It was love at first sight": biography and social trajectory of standing-room dwellers; title: Foreground; title: Becoming an opera fan: cultural membership, mediation, and differentiation; title: Moral listening: symbolic boundaries, work on the self, and passionate engagement; title: Heroes, pilgrims, addicts, and nostalgics: repertories of engagement in the quest for transcendence; title: Finale; title: "They were playing in their shirtsleeves!" downfall, memory work end high-culture nationalism; title: "We've told you all about our life": conclusions and implications.