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150 Years of Opera in Chicago

Amazon.com Price:  $43.91 (as of 06/05/2019 12:04 PST- Details)

Description

Chicago’s love affair with opera began early, in 1850, when the frontier town welcomed its first traveling opera singers. A full house applauded the opening performance, but right through a repeat performance tomorrow, the theater burned to the ground. Nonetheless, Chicago had been bitten by the opera bug, and it has never lost its enthusiasm for the art.

More than sixty years—and lots of visiting opera companies—would pass before the city established an opera company of its own. Robert Marsh recounts the trials and triumphs of the entrepreneurs and the colorful international artists who brought opera to Chicago and staged it in quite a few different theaters. Within the first half of the twentieth century, seven opera companies were began in Chicago—and failed. In the end, in 1954, three friends launched the company that became Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the city gained a company that not only thrived but earned recognition as one of the vital nation’s great cultural institutions. This book also details the history and fortunes of the Chicago Opera Theater from its inception in 1974 to the present.

Singers, musicians, enterprising impresarios, richly decorated opera houses, and performances that held audiences spellbound all figure into Marsh’s full of life account of opera in Chicago. The story also provides an overview of changes Within the operatic repertoire, audience development, and approaches to production as opera grew from a “stand-and-sing” event to its full flowering as enriching musical drama.

Enlivened with nearly a hundred illustrations, 150 Years of Opera in Chicago embraces its subject enthusiastically. This broad and engaging over view is supplemented with a list of professional opera performances in Chicago, from 1850 to 2005.


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