Daniel Snowman
The Gilded Stage: A Social, Political and Economic History of Opera
Summary
Most histories of opera concentrate on great composers and their works and the famous singers who performed them. Daniel invites us to look at opera in its wider context: the production as well as the consumption, the “supply” and the “demand.” This lecture will touch on monarchs, money makers, artists and audiences, theaters and the people who run them, and the impact of new technologies from gaslight to photography, recording, film, and digital. During this magnificent grand tour of the mind there will be stopovers in Renaissance Italy, Louis XIV’s Versailles, Handel’s London, Mozart’s Vienna, Verdi’s Italy, Wagner’s Germany, and Gilded Age America. In the 20th century, opera survived two world wars to become a truly global art form. Yet with the huge problems faced by today’s world, the question must be addressed: Does opera have a future? And what exactly do we mean by “opera” anyway?
Daniel Snowman
Daniel Snowman is a social and cultural historian. Born in London to a Jewish family in 1938 and educated at Cambridge and Cornell, Daniel became a lecturer at the University of Sussex and went on to work for many years at the BBC as senior producer of radio features and documentaries. A senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London), his many books include a social history of opera and a study of the cultural impact of the ‘Hitler Emigrés’ and, most recently, his memoir “Just Passing Through: Interactions with the World 1938-2021”.