Daniel Snowman
What Do You Do When Your Theatre Burns Down? Try to Get It Rebuilt!
Summary
In mid-Victorian times, London was one of the world’s great centres of opera. On 5 March, 1856, its leading theatre, the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden, was destroyed by fire. The fire occurred just a few weeks before the annual opera season was due to begin; famous international artists had been booked, repertoires chosen, tickets sold. Daniel Snowman has been given access to the diaries of the man in charge, Frederick Gye, and in this lecture he will tell of the political, legal, economic, social, technical, and artistic considerations that had to be taken into account by this impresario in extremis.
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”.