Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Opera and Politics in Queen Anne's Britain, 1705-1714

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

McGeary, Thomas

Hardcover

Series: Music in Britain, 1600-2000, Book 31

British HistoryOperaMusic Reference

ISBN10: 1783277157
ISBN13: 9781783277155
Publisher: Boydell Press
Published: Jul 26 2022
Pages: 444
Weight: 1.76
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Explores the political meanings that Italian opera - its composers, agents and institutions - had for audiences in eighteenth-century Britain.

The reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) was pivotal for both politics and opera in Britain. In this study, Thomas McGeary brings together a wide range of sources to show how the worlds of politics and opera were entwined. The associations that Italian singing and singers acquired by the 1690s were used in partisan Whig-Tory writings. Rather than a foreign invasion, McGeary shows how the introduction of Italian-style opera was a native product that grew out of plans for a new theatre in the Haymarket. A crucial event for opera was Handel's arrival in London in 1710.

While the criticism of opera by Whig writers such as Richard Steele and Joseph Addison is well known, McGeary uncovers how the early promotion and sponsorship of opera was, in fact, largely a Whig enterprise and cultural program. Indeed, major political figures (mostly Whigs) participated in the support and patronage of opera.

Opera and Politics in Queen Anne's Britain will be required reading for opera scholars and cultural and political historians of eighteenth-century Britain, as well those interested in the vibrant literature culture of the period.

Also from

McGeary, Thomas

View All

Also in

Music Reference

View All