Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • 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
The Operatic Kaleidoscope: Voice, Race, and the Ragtime Popular Stage

The Operatic Kaleidoscope: Voice, Race, and the Ragtime Popular Stage

Turner, Kristen M.

Hardcover

Series: Music in American Life

Black American StudiesOperaMusic Reference

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0252059875
ISBN13: 9780252059872
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: Sep 29 2026
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.00
Language: English
Opera and popular entertainment intersected at the turn of the twentieth century just as Americans debated the terms of citizenship. Kristen M. Turner disentangles the intertwined histories of race, class, gender, culture, and musical style to explain opera's place in the mass culture of the ragtime era.

Turner examines performances ranging from Florenz Ziegfeld's early Follies to Black vaudeville shows to musical comedies, including everything from celebrity vehicles to obscure productions and overlooked artists. She reveals how opera's popularity in mass culture illuminates the effects of exclusionary immigration policies, pervasive racial and ethnic inequalities, debates over women's suffrage, and the imposition of legalized segregation. Performers and creators from many communities--white immigrants, Jewish, Black, and Asian American--strategically deployed operatic allusions and the genre's characteristic vocal timbre to assert their respectability, challenge stereotypes, and navigate oppressive social structures.

Nuanced and expansive, The Operatic Kaleidoscope explores opera's role when popular culture grappled with questions of race and citizenship.

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