At 12:50 AM -0800 1/13/07, Mark D. Lew wrote:
On Jan 12, 2007, at 5:38 PM, John Howell wrote:
Opera was entertainment, and can only be compared with musical theater today
I think a better comparison is with film today.
Especially if you're talking about 19th century
opera.
It's no coincidence that there's so many
connections between opera composers and film
composers around the 1930s.
Touchée! I wasn't even thinking in those terms,
but of course you're right. Musical theater had
its heyday before WW II, but movies have taken
over the field of large-scale popular
entertainment without the limitations of a small
stage and a proscenium, bringing the patrons into
the action. And of course appealing to popular
taste, which actually didn't exist much before
the 20th century, while still creating artistic
masterpieces in some cases.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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