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    In der Mitte der Gesellschaft. English
    Center stage : operatic culture and nation building in nineteenth-century Central Europe / Philipp Ther ; translated from the German by Charlotte Hughes-Kreutzmuller.

    • Title:[In der Mitte der Gesellschaft. English]
      Center stage : operatic culture and nation building in nineteenth-century Central Europe / Philipp Ther ; translated from the German by Charlotte Hughes-Kreutzmuller.
    •    
    • Author/Creator:Ther, Philipp, author.
    • Other Contributors/Collections:Hughes-Kreutzmuller, Charlotte, translator.
    • Published/Created:West Lafayette, Indiana : Purdue University Press, [2014]
    • Holdings

       
    • Library of Congress Subjects:Opera--Social aspects--Germany--Dresden--19th century.
      Opera--Social aspects--Germany--Dresden--20th century.
      Opera--Social aspects--Ukraine--Lʹviv--19th century.
      Opera--Social aspects--Ukraine--Lʹviv--20th century.
      Opera--Social aspects--Czech Republic--Prague--19th century.
      Opera--Social aspects--Czech Republic--Prague--20th century.
      Nationalism in music.
    • Description:xii, 291 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
    • Series:Central European studies.
    • Summary:"Grand palaces of culture, opera theaters marked the center of European cities like the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. As opera cast its spell, almost every European city and society aspired to have its own opera house, and dozens of new theaters were constructed in the course of the "long" nineteenth century. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only a few, mostly royal, opera theaters, existed in Europe. However, by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries nearly every large town possessed a theater in which operas were performed, especially in Central Europe, the region upon which this book concentrates. This volume, a revised and extended version of two well-reviewed books published in German and Czech, explores the social and political background to this "opera mania" in nineteenth century Central Europe. After tracing the major trends in the opera history of the period, including the emergence of national genres of opera and its various social functions and cultural meanings, the author contrasts the histories of the major houses in Dresden (a court theater), Lemberg (a theater built and sponsored by aristocrats), and Prague (a civic institution). Beyond the operatic institutions and their key stage productions, composers such as Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, Bedřich Smetana, Stanisław Moniuszko, Antonín Dvořák, and Richard Strauss are put in their social and political contexts. The concluding chapter, bringing together the different leitmotifs of social and cultural history explored in the rest of the book, explains the specificities of opera life in Central Europe within a wider European and global framework"-- Provided by publisher.
    • Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
    • ISBN:9781557536754 (pbk.)
      1557536759 (pbk.)
      9781612493299 (epdf)
      9781612493305 (epub)
    • Contents:Machine generated contents note: pt. One Introduction
      pt. Two Royal Theater in Dresden
      1. Organization and Control of the Royal Theater
      2. Constructing National Culture
      3. Europeanization and Musical Modernism
      pt. Three Polish Theater in Lemberg
      4. Social Foundations
      5. Provincial Opera
      pt. Four Czech National Theater in Prague
      6. Launching the National Theater Project
      7. Theater for All Classes
      8. Opera Nation
      pt. Five Comparison, Cultural Transfers, and Networks
      9. Opera and Society
      10. Nationalizing Opera
      11. Cultural Exchanges and Europeanization.
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