Someone Else's Music
Opera and the British
- Publisher's listprice GBP 22.99
-
10 379 Ft (9 885 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 1 038 Ft off)
- Discounted price 9 341 Ft (8 897 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
10 379 Ft
Availability
printed on demand
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 30 September 2025
- ISBN 9780197803639
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages296 pages
- Size 236x169x23 mm
- Weight 581 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 12 photographs 625
Categories
Short description:
Someone Else's Music reveals a hidden history of popular opera-going in Britain, which defies the opera-elitism stereotype. At the same time, the book traces how, when, and why that stereotype arose.
MoreLong description:
In Britain today, opera is routinely called elitist. But things were not always so. Examining shifting cultural attitudes over the century from 1920 to 2020, Someone Else's Music reveals a hidden history of popular opera-going in Britain, which defies the opera-elitism stereotype. At the same time, the book traces how, when, and why that stereotype arose. It uses opera as a lens through which to examine the broader history of changing cultural values in the UK, from 1920s Reithian ideals about art's civilising qualities to contemporary culture wars. The controversies opera has prompted over the last century reveal a great deal about national identity — who Britons think they are and who they want to be.
The book ranges widely across topics including education, public broadcasting, arts policy, and attitudes towards subsidy, and traces opera's surprisingly close relationship with popular culture. We meet a diverse cast of characters, including working-class East-End opera fans, opera-singing Welsh miners, soldiers discovering opera in wartime Italy, and holidaymakers watching it at Butlin's. The book is as much about the secretary camping out in the queue for gallery tickets as it is about the duchess in the stalls.
But at what point did people start calling opera elitist and why? Analysing lasting stereotypes around opera, Wilson reveals them to be politically motivated, founded in deep-seated British anxieties about class, education, and national identity. Someone Else's Music is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the debates we are having today about arts funding, accessibility and who opera is 'for'. It reveals that opera used to be for everyone - and shows us how it could be again.
Timely and provocative....Scrupulously researched, it patiently refutes lazily antagonistic prejudice.
Table of Contents:
The Elitism Myth
Opera for All
(Dis)-Enchanted Gardens
Opera Goes to War
Pageantry and Participation
Counterculture
A National Opera?
The E-Word
A Perfect Storm
Twenty-First-Century Blues
This Sceptic Isle
Conclusion
