The Cultural Politics of Opera, 1720-1742

The Cultural Politics of Opera, 1720-1742 PDF Author: Thomas McGeary
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1837651698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
Explores the intersection of the world of opera, literature and partisan politics to show how Italian opera was put to use in the 'culture wars' of the day. This last of a trilogy of books on opera and politics in Britain examines the cultural politics of opera during the ministerial reign of Sir Robert Walpole from 1720 to 1742. The book explores the intersection of the world of opera, literature, and partisan politics to show how Italian opera - with its associations with the court, ministry and Britain's social-political elite - was put to use in the 'culture wars' of the day: how Italian opera was used for partisan political advantage; how political work could be accomplished by means of opera. It shows that attacks on opera had ulterior targets. The book surveys a range of often overlooked verse and prints to show how critique or satire of opera were a means for oppositional writers to delegitimize the Walpole ministry. Polemicists framed opera as a consequence of the corruption, luxury and False Taste generated by Walpole's ministry. It closes in the watershed year 1742: Handel had produced the last of his Italian operas the previous year, Walpole fell from power, and Alexander Pope published the last book of his Dunciad project.

The Cultural Politics of Opera, 1720-1742

The Cultural Politics of Opera, 1720-1742 PDF Author: Thomas McGeary
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1837651698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores the intersection of the world of opera, literature and partisan politics to show how Italian opera was put to use in the 'culture wars' of the day. This last of a trilogy of books on opera and politics in Britain examines the cultural politics of opera during the ministerial reign of Sir Robert Walpole from 1720 to 1742. The book explores the intersection of the world of opera, literature, and partisan politics to show how Italian opera - with its associations with the court, ministry and Britain's social-political elite - was put to use in the 'culture wars' of the day: how Italian opera was used for partisan political advantage; how political work could be accomplished by means of opera. It shows that attacks on opera had ulterior targets. The book surveys a range of often overlooked verse and prints to show how critique or satire of opera were a means for oppositional writers to delegitimize the Walpole ministry. Polemicists framed opera as a consequence of the corruption, luxury and False Taste generated by Walpole's ministry. It closes in the watershed year 1742: Handel had produced the last of his Italian operas the previous year, Walpole fell from power, and Alexander Pope published the last book of his Dunciad project.

Opera and Politics in Queen Anne's Britain, 1705-1714

Opera and Politics in Queen Anne's Britain, 1705-1714 PDF Author: Thomas McGeary
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783277157
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
Explores the political meanings that Italian opera - its composers, agents and institutions - had for audiences in eighteenth-century Britain.

From Plantation to Paradise?

From Plantation to Paradise? PDF Author: David M. Powers
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1628950226
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In 1764 the first printing press was established in the French Caribbean colonies, launching the official documentation of operas and plays performed there, and marking the inauguration of the first theatre in the colonies. A rigorous study of pre–French Revolution performance practices in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Powers’s book examines the elaborate system of social casting in these colonies; the environments in which nonwhite artists emerged; and both negative and positive contributions of the Catholic Church and the military to operas and concerts produced in the colonies. The author also explores the level of participation of nonwhites in these productions, as well as theatre architecture, décor, repertoire, seating arrangements, and types of audiences. The status of nonwhite artists in colonial society; the range of operas in which they performed; their accomplishments, praise, criticism; and the use of créole texts and white actors/singers à visage noirs (with blackened faces) present a clear picture of French operatic culture in these colonies. Approaching the French Revolution, the study concludes with an examination of the ways in which colonial opera was affected by slave uprisings, the French Revolution, the emergence of “patriotic theatres,” and their role in fostering support for the king, as well as the impact on subsequent operas produced in the colonies and in the United States.

Political Journalism in London, 1695-1720

Political Journalism in London, 1695-1720 PDF Author: Ashley Marshall
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783275456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
A major history of the evolution of political journalism in the late Stuart and early Hanoverian period.

The Politics of Opera in Handel's Britain

The Politics of Opera in Handel's Britain PDF Author: Thomas McGeary
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139619470
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
The Politics of Opera in Handel's Britain examines the involvement of Italian opera in British partisan politics in the first half of the eighteenth century, which saw Sir Robert Walpole's rise to power and George Frideric Handel's greatest period of opera production. McGeary argues that the conventional way of applying Italian opera to contemporary political events and persons by means of allegory and allusion in individual operas is mistaken; nor did partisan politics intrude into the management of the Royal Academy of Music and the Opera of the Nobility. This book shows instead how Senesino, Faustina, Cuzzoni and events at the Haymarket Theatre were used in political allegories in satirical essays directed against the Walpole ministry. Since most operas were based on ancient historical events, the librettos - like traditional histories - could be sources of examples of vice, virtue, and political precepts and wisdom that could be applied to contemporary politics.

Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought

Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought PDF Author: Ruth Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521402654
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
In this wide-r anging and challenging book, Ruth Smith claims that the words to Handel's oratorios reflect the events and ideas of their time and have far greater meaning than has hitherto been realised. She explores eighteenth-century literature, music, aesthetics, politics and religion to reveal Handel's texts as conduits for the thought and sensibility of their time. The book thus enriches our understanding of Handel, his times, and the close relationship between music and its intellectual contexts.

Verdi in America

Verdi in America PDF Author: George Whitney Martin
Publisher: University Rochester Press
ISBN: 1580463886
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
A renowned Verdi authority offers here the often-astounding first history of how Verdi's early operas -- including one of his great masterpieces, Rigoletto -- made their way into America's musical life.

Friendship and Allegiance in Eighteenth-Century Literature

Friendship and Allegiance in Eighteenth-Century Literature PDF Author: Emrys Jones
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137300507
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Friendship and Allegiance explores the concept of friendship as it was defined, contested and distorted by writers of the early eighteenth century. Setting well-known canonical texts (The Beggar's Opera, Gulliver's Travels) alongside lesser-known works, it portrays a literary world renegotiating the meaning of public and private virtue.

Before the Baton

Before the Baton PDF Author: Peter Holman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783274565
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
How was large-scale music directed or conducted in Britain before baton conducting took hold in the 1830s?

The Public’s Open to Us All

The Public’s Open to Us All PDF Author: Laura Engel
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527561364
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
“The Public’s Open to Us All”: Essays on Women and Performance in Eighteenth-Century England considers the relationship between British women and various modes of performance in the long eighteenth century. From the moment Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, the question of women’s status in the public world became the focus of cultural attention both on and off the stage. In addition to the appearance of the first actresses during this period female playwrights, novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, theatrical managers and entrepreneurs emerged as skillful and often demanding professionals. In this variety of new roles, eighteenth-century women redefined shifting notions of femininity by challenging traditional representations of female subjectivity and contributing to the shaping of eighteenth-century society’s attitudes, tastes, and cultural imagination. Recent scholarship in eighteenth-century studies reflects a heightened interest in fame, the rise of celebrity culture, and new ways of understanding women’s participation as both private individuals and public professionals. What is unique to the body of essays presented here is the authors’ focus on performance as a means of thinking about the ways in which women occupied, negotiated, re-imagined, and challenged the world outside of the traditional domestic realm. The authors employ a range of historical, literary, and theoretical approaches to the connections among women and performance, and in doing so make significant contributions to the fields of eighteenth-century literary and cultural studies, theatre history, gender studies, and performance studies.