Puccini's La Bohème (Oxford Keynotes)

Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? In this book, author Alexandra Wilson traces La Boheme's rise to fame and demonstrates that its success grew steadily through stage performances, recordings, filmedversions and the endorsements of star singers. More recently, popular songs, film soundtracks and musicals that draw on the opera's music and themes added further to its immense cultural impact.This cultural history offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. Wilson argues that La Boheme's approach to realism and its flouting of conventions of the Italian operatic tradition made it strikingly modern for the 1890s. She explores how Puccini and his librettists engaged with gender, urbanpoverty and nostalgia - themes that grew out of the work's own time and continue to resonate with audiences more than 120 years later. Her analysis of the opera's depiction of Paris reveals that La Boheme was not only influenced by the romantic mythologies surrounding the city to this day but alsohelped shape them. Wilson's consideration of how directors have reinvented this opera for a new age completes this fascinating history of La Boheme, making it essential reading for anyone interested in this opera and the works it inspired.

Arts & Photography

Wilson, Alexandra

Music

Oxford University Press

Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? In this book, author Alexandra Wilson traces La Bohème's rise to fame and demonstrates that its success grew steadily through stage performances, recordings, filmed versions and the endorsements of star singers. More recently, popular songs, film soundtracks and musicals that draw on the opera's music and themes added further to its immense cultural impact. This cultural history offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. Wilson argues that La Bohème's approach to realism and its flouting of conventions of the Italian operatic tradition made it strikingly modern for the 1890s. She explores how Puccini and his librettists engaged with gender, urban poverty and nostalgia--themes that grew out of the work's own time and continue to resonate with audiences more than 120 years later. Her analysis of the opera's depiction of Paris reveals that La Bohème was not only influenced by the romantic mythologies surrounding the city to this day but also helped shape them. Wilson's consideration of how directors have reinvented this opera for a new age completes this fascinating history of La Bohème, making it essential reading for anyone interested in this opera and the works it inspired.

Jazz, the Charleston, nightclubs, cocktails, cinema, and musical theatre: 1920s British nightlife was vibrant and exhilarating. But where did opera fit into this fashionable new entertainment world? Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain explores the interaction between opera and popular culture at a key historical moment when there was a growing imperative to categorize art forms as "highbrow," "middlebrow," or "lowbrow." Literary studies of the so-called "battle of the brows" have been numerous, but this is the first book to consider the place of opera in interwar debates about high and low culture. This study by Alexandra Wilson argues that opera was extremely difficult to pigeonhole: although some contemporary commentators believed it to be too highbrow, others thought it not highbrow enough. Opera in the Jazz Age paints a lively and engaging picture of 1920s operatic culture, and introduces a charismatic cast of early twentieth-century critics, conductors, and celebrity singers. Opera was performed during this period to socially mixed audiences in a variety of spaces beyond the conventional opera house: music halls, cinemas, caf�s and schools. Performance and production standards were not always high - often quite the reverse - but opera-going was evidently great fun. Office boys whistled operatic tunes they had heard on the gramophone and there was a genuine sense that opera was for everyone. In this provocative and timely study, Wilson considers how the opera debate of the 1920s continues to shape the ways in which we discuss the art form, and draws connections between the battle of the brows and present-day discussions about elitism. The book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the cultural politics of twentieth-century Britain and is essential reading for anybody interested in the history of opera, the battle of the brows, or simply the perennially fascinating decade that was the 1920s.

Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain

A detailed investigation of the reception and cultural contexts of Puccini's music, this book offers a fresh view of this historically important but frequently overlooked composer. Wilson's study explores the ways in which Puccini's music and persona were held up as both the antidote to and the embodiment of the decadence widely felt to be afflicting late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy, a nation which although politically unified remained culturally divided. The book focuses upon two central, related questions that were debated throughout Puccini's career: his status as a national or international composer, and his status as a traditionalist or modernist. In addition, Wilson examines how Puccini's operas became caught up in a wide range of extra-musical controversies concerning such issues as gender and class. This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of both the history of opera and of the wider artistic and intellectual life of turn-of-the-century Italy.

The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity (Cambridge Studies in Opera)

Cambridge University Press

WILSON, A.: THE PUCCINI PROBLEM. OPERA, NATIONALISM, AND MODERNITY. CAMBRIDGE, 2007, xii 321 p. figuras.Encuadernacion original. Nuevo.

The Witness: The most authentic, twisty legal thriller, from the barrister author of In Black and White

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

SPHERE

The Queen is not amused! That means everyone's in trouble. No kingdom can run smoothly with a grumpy queen on the throne! Join our bossy queen through her adventure as she explores a different outlook. Will the kingdom achieve its vital 'happily ever after'?

The Royal Rescue

Children's Books

Comics & Graphic Novels

Austin Macauley

Opera is often dismissed as outdated and excessive, and perceived to be characterised by excessive passions, sumptuous costumes, and ill-mannered divas. In reality, however, operas address the most fundamental and universal of human concerns - love, death, jealousy, greed, and power. Revealing the diverse reasons behind opera's lasting appeal, opera champion and expert Alexandra Wilson provides a lucid and engaging introduction to the agendas that have governed its composition, production and reception over the last four centuries, and explains the reasons behind its enduring appeal.

Opera: A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guides)

Oneworld Publications

In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Endeavour

**PAPERBACK FEATURES NEW CONTENT. NOW WITH AFTERWORD AND READING GROUP QUESTIONS**\n'A compelling and courageous memoir forcing the legal profession to confront uncomfortable truths about race and class. Alexandra Wilson is a bold and vital voice. This is a book that urgently needs to be read by everyone inside, and outside, the justice system.' THE SECRET BARRISTER\n'A riveting book in the best tradition of courtroom dramas but from the fresh perspective of a young female mixed-race barrister. That Alexandra is "often" mistaken for the defendant shows how important her presence at the bar really is.' MATT RUDD, THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE\nAlexandra Wilson was a teenager when her dear family friend Ayo was stabbed on his way home from football. Ayo's death changed Alexandra. She felt compelled to enter the legal profession in search of answers.\nAs a junior criminal and family law barrister, Alexandra finds herself navigating a world and a set of rules designed by a privileged few. A world in which fellow barristers sigh with relief when a racist judge retires: 'I've got a black kid today and he would have had no hope'.\nIn her debut book, In Black and White, Alexandra re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart-breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister's life.\nAlexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. We see what it is like for children coerced into county line drug deals and the damage that can be caused when we criminalise teenagers.\nAlexandra's account of what she has witnessed as a young mixed-race barrister is in equal parts shocking, compelling, confounding and powerful.\n'An inspirational, clear-eyed account of life as a junior barrister is made all the more exceptional by the determination, passion, humanity and drive of the author. Anyone interested in seeing how the law really works should read it.' 
SARAH LANGFORD\n'This is the story of a young woman who overcame all the obstacles a very old profession could throw at her, and she survived, with her integrity intact.' 
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH\n'Wilson offers a role model for those who still think the law is for other people, and shows the way for English courts to become ever less Dickensian.' 
DAVID COWAN, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilson, Alexandra. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wilson, Alexandra

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilson, Alexandra. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Puccini's La Bohème (Oxford Keynotes)

Puccini's La Bohème (Oxford Keynotes)

Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain

The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity (Cambridge Studies in Opera)

The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity (Cambridge Studies in Opera)

The Witness: The most authentic, twisty legal thriller, from the barrister author of In Black and White

The Royal Rescue

Opera: A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guides)

In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System

In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System