Operatic Geographies: The Place of Opera and the Opera House

Opera has always been associated with the performance and negotiation of power, and the physical location of opera houses has played a significant role in this. Operatic Geographies explores the relationship between opera and its environments, including traditional opera houses, less visible spaces, and rural, open-air theaters, and how this relationship informs the historical development of its social, cultural, and political functions.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 22 April 2019
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Opera has been inextricably linked to the performance and negotiation of power since its inception. This connection was not only expressed in the design and layout of opera theaters but also in the content of operatic works. However, the physical location of opera houses and the ways in which opera and opera houses have shaped each other have often been overlooked as topics worthy of examination. Operatic Geographies seeks to challenge this notion by exploring the spatial production of opera houses. By adopting a cultural geography perspective, this anthology reimagines the landscape of opera houses as an expression of territoriality. The essays in this anthology examine moments across the history of the genre, spanning various geographical contexts, including urban, suburban, rural, and global locations. One of the most innovative approaches in this anthology is the exploration of the interactions between opera and its environments. This includes examining the traditional opera house as well as less visible and peripheral spaces, such as girls' schools in late seventeenth-century England, touring operatic troupes' temporary arrangements in nineteenth-century Calcutta, and rural, open-air theaters in early twentieth-century France. The essays in Operatic Geographies provide powerful illustrations of how opera's spatial production informs the historical development of its social, cultural, and political functions.

Weight: 496g
Dimension: 153 x 230 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226596013