Thursday 9th May

The Gilded Stage: A Social and Cultural History of Opera

Lecturer: Daniel Snowman 

 

Most histories of opera concentrate on great composers and their works and perhaps some of 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. Thus he touches on monarchs, money-makers, artists and audiences, theatres and the people who ran them, and the impact of new technologies from gaslight to photography, recording, film and digital. During this magnificent tour of the mind we visit 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, with the huge problems the world faces, the question must be addressed: does opera have a future and what exactly do we mean by ‘opera’ anyway?

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Daniel is an academic, broadcaster, professional lecturer and author of over a dozen books on social and cultural history. A graduate of Cambridge and Cornell, he was a lecturer at the University of Sussex and the Chief Producer, BBC Radio (Features). He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London). He has presented more lectures for the Arts Society than he cares to remember, led tours to many of the world’s great cultural capitals and given lectures widely on many aspects of cultural and artistic history.

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Everyone warmly welcome - members free, visitors £7.

Refreshments available at the end of the lecture.

For further information contact info.tasaf@gmail.com or our membership secretary on

01892 861015