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

Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British

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

THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY MURDER. A young black man is arrested for murder. The case against him is strong - a mum and a teacher saw him standing over a body in a park, a knife still in hand. But his up-and-coming barrister Rosa knows how people prejudge, but most of all, she suspects something is amiss. This boy comes from her neighbourhood. From a good family. So she begins to dig... As Rosa discovers secret upon terrible secret, she moves closer to finding a testimony that could win the case - or bring the whole establishment down on her. The Witness is a frightening thriller about a young lawyer who will do anything to set her defendant free.

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Hachette Mobius

SPHERE

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

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

Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British

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

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