Summary
If we do not know, by any standard, current or contemporaneous, the qualities of the works that were the purpose of this industry, then we cannot know whether the operas studied reached a wide audience, if they gained popular acceptance, or in what way they formed or were formed by the Venetian Zeitgeist. In fact, the book offers a chronicle of opera productions from 1651-1668 including all the people associated with them (appendix 1, pp. 325-37), information on the division of classes in Venice (appendix 2, pp. 338-39), a valuable glossary of terms in common use (pp. 359-62), as well as several lists of expenses and attendance records, and even a note on the otherwise confusing Venetian monetary system, all of which provide interesting material for further research.
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Extract
Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth Century Venice
Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth Century Venice. By Beth L. Glixon and Jonathan E. Glixon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. [xxvi, 398 p. ISBN 0-195-15416-9. $50.00] Illustrations, bibliography, index.
As they make clear in the preface, Beth and Jonathan Glixon have been working on this book for many years, and their work is both long awaited and well worth the wait. Inventing the Business of Opera is not intended for ...See the full content of this document
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