Opera and nationalism in mid-eighteenth-century Britain

Thesis

Italian opera gained an odd resonance in eighteenth-century British sensibility. By turns loved and hated, it acted on the British imagination as a catalyst both for some of the age's most brilliant satire, and for some of the century's most unusual musical extravagances. This dissertation argues that, despite (or in some ways because of) the eventual failure of Italian serious opera and its English hybrid forms to attain status within the musical canon, the progress of opera played a vit...

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Authors: Aspden, S; Aspden, Suzanne

• Publication date: 1999
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-rdorqaw2k
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Great Britain; Opera; Nationalism in music; 18th century