The Opera is Booming. This is a City.: Opera in the Urban Frontier of Denver, 1864-1893

Opera;American West;Amateurism;Placemaking;Nineteenth-Century Operatic Culture;Colorado;Music and Dance;Theatre and Drama;African-American Studies;Arts;Humanities;Music: Musicology

Stewart, AustinWhiting, Steven Moore ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Opera;    American West;    Amateurism;    Placemaking;    Nineteenth-Century Operatic Culture;    Colorado;    Music and Dance;    Theatre and Drama;    African-American Studies;    Arts;    Humanities;    Music: Musicology;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/149878/ajstewar_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

In 1888, a Harper’s Weekly correspondent praised Denver, Colorado, as ;;a metropolis, a center of refinement, a place rich in itself, influential, and the admiration of all beholders.” Three decades earlier, Denver had been little more than an outpost at the edge of the frontier; now, Denver represented civic respectability and the achievements of Manifest Destiny. This dissertation examines the presence of opera during the emergence of Denver as an economic and political center in the American West, and how opera was experienced between 1864 and 1893 in spaces from makeshift theaters above saloons to the Tabor Grand Opera House. The first date marks the earliest known performance of opera in Denver; the latter, the onset of the city’s economic depression following the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Whether performed by itinerant professionals or local amateurs, opera played an active role in the process of urbanizing the frontier and sustaining Denver’s civic identity. Opera, as the cultural institution of the nineteenth century, evidenced the presence of colonialists in the American West, was used by civic boosters to direct a fledgling city in political and social matters, and provided opportunities for both dominant and minority groups to construct place and community.This dissertation examines the relationship between opera and place-making, identity, civic boosterism, the transference of vernacular opera, and participatory music-making. Discourses about the moralizing influence of theater and ;;civilizing” the frontier emerge, which reframe new Western historiography on ;;high” culture, and resituate the operatic culture of Western settlers in the United States within a transnational experience. This process was aided by itinerant opera singers, including Anna Stein and Renzo Gruenwald, Emma and Clelia Howson, Marie Aimée, and Alice Oates, who introduced Denver to the works of Jacques Offenbach and other popular opera composers. Institutions such as the Tabor Grand Opera House, inaugurated by the ;;people’s prima donna” Emma Abbott in 1881, reflected the stability of the city’s economy and growing population, as well as its perceived affluence. This theater entwined Denver in a nation-wide craze for English-language opera, while foreign-language companies as auspicious as Henry Mapleson’s Her Majesty’s Opera Company, starring Adelina Patti and Etelka Gerster, alienated audiences by inflating their ticket prices. Nevertheless, the successes of the English-language opera troupes inspired local amateur musicians to involve themselves in creating opera. Members of the Colorado Opera Club crafted their collective identity in Stanley Wood’s Rocky Mountain-themed operetta Brittle Silver (1882). A homespun piece that contributed significantly to place-making for Denver’s amateur musicians, Brittle Silver inspired sentimental attachment to the American West, and thematized silver mining labor disputes, interactions between sourdoughs and tourists, and relations with the indigenous nations. Finally, this dissertation brings to light the same phenomenon of amateur operatic activity in Denver’s African American community. This includes an examination of the Hyers Sisters and their tour of Colorado, as well as Harry Lawrence Freeman’s The Martyr (1893) and its performance by his amateur company, engaging representations of emancipation, religiosity, and liberty in the American West. On balance, this dissertation redresses several gaps in Western urban history by considering culture, class, civic and racial identity, and boosterism through the ambitious, often irrational lens of opera production.