The Gilded Stage

Fascinating and highly readable, this is the definitive social history of the world's most romantic, flamboyant, glamorous, and politically influential art-form: opera   From its beginnings in the Renaissance cities of northern Italy opera has permeated through Europe, America, and beyond, becoming a global business in the digital age. This history unwraps the story of opera from the charm and chaos of Mozart's Vienna to Frederick the Great's Berlin. It covers the lure o