Democracy at the Opera

Know about the book -

Democracy at the Opera is written by Karen Ahlquist and published by University of Illinois Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0252022726 (ISBN 10) and 9780252022722 (ISBN 13).

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.