In the Public Eye

Know about the book -

In the Public Eye is written by Markian Prokopovych and published by Böhlau Verlag Wien. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 320577941X (ISBN 10) and 9783205779414 (ISBN 13).

During the 1884 inauguration of the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest, political elites staged a gala concert in the auditorium while the angry crowd, excluded from this ceremony, demonstrated on the street. In 1917, the crowds queuing to a Béla Bartók premiere needed to be forcibly held back. The book follows the history of the contested institution through a series of scandals, public protests, repertoire controversies and their representation in the urban press of the time. Such conflicts often led to larger issues that concerned the Opera House as a music institution, the birth of the modern public sphere and the modern audience. Thereby, the book calls for a critical rethinking of the cultural history of Budapest and Hungary in the late Habsburg Monarchy.