Academic attention has focused on America’s influence on European stage works, and yet dozens of operettas from Austria and Germany were produced on Broadway and in the West End, and their impact on the musical life of the early twentieth century is undeniable. In this ground-breaking book, Derek B. Scott examines the cultural transfer of operetta from the German stage to Britain and the USA and offers a historical and critical survey of these operettas and their music. In the period 1900–1940, over sixty operettas were produced in the West End, and over seventy on Broadway. A study of these stage works is important for the light they shine on a variety of social topics of the period – from modernity and gender relations to new technology and new media – and these are investigated in the individual chapters. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core at doi.org/10.1017/9781108614306.
Derek B. Scott is Professor of Critical Musicology at the University of Leeds. His books include Sounds of the Metropolis (2008) and Musical Style and Social Meaning (2010). His musical compositions include two symphonies for brass band and an operetta, Wilberforce. He has also worked professionally as a singer, actor, and pianist on radio and TV, and in concert hall and theatre. In 2014, he was awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council to fund a five-year project researching the twentieth-century reception of operettas from the German stage on Broadway and in the West End.
Author(s): D.B. scott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
List of
Figures and Tables
List of
Music Examples
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I The Production of Operetta
1 The Music of Operetta
2 Cultural Transfer: Translation and Transcreation
3 The Business of Operetta
4 Producers, Directors, Designers, and Performers
Part II The Reception of Operetta
5 The Reception of Operetta in London and New York
6 Operetta and Intermediality
7 Operetta and Modernity
8 Operetta and Cosmopolitanism
Postlude: The Demise of Operetta
Appendix 1 Productions of Operetta from the German Stage on Broadway and in the West End, 1900–1940
Appendix 2 Longest Runs of First Performances of Operettas from the German Stage on Broadway and in the West End, 1900–1940
Appendix 3 Operettas with English Librettos by Composers for the German Stage
Appendix 4 Selected Period Recordings of English Versions of Operetta from the German Stage
Appendix 5 Selected Films in English of Operettas by Composers for the German Stage
Appendix 6 Research Resources
Bibliography
Index
