Table Of ContentOpera in the Jazz Age
Opera in the Jazz Age
Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain
xwx
Alexandra Wilson
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Alexandra Wilson 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Wilson, Alexandra, 1973– author.
Title: Opera in the jazz age : cultural politics in 1920s Britain /
Alexandra Wilson.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018018677 | ISBN 9780190912666 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780190912680 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Opera— Great Britain— 20th century. | Music— Social
aspects— Great Britain— History— 20th century.
Classification: LCC ML1731.5.W52 2018 | DDC 782.10941/ 09042— dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/ 2018018677
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
FIGURES
1.1 Covent Garden Theatre, 1927 33
2.1 Robert Heger conducting Elektra at Covent Garden, 1925 59
3.1 The Old Vic Theatre, Lambeth, early twentieth century 84
4.1 Nellie Melba recording at Chelmsford, 1920 118
5.1 Maria Jeritza in Fedora, 1922 135
6.1 The queue at Covent Garden for Nellie Melba’s final performance,
1926 155
6.2 Amelita Galli- Curci typing 167
7.1 Eva Turner and Booth Hitchen in Cavalleria rusticana, the Carl Rosa
Opera Company, 1921 198
( ix )
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A ny large- scale book project takes a period of many years to ‘brew’, and
I first started thinking tentatively about the subject of opera in 1920s
Britain around a decade ago. Most of the research proper, however, was car-
ried out during the academic year 2014– 2015, when I was lucky enough to
be the recipient of a British Academy Mid- Career Fellowship. This funding
scheme is highly competitive and I am extremely grateful to the BA for
awarding me the Fellowship, as well as to Helen Greenwald for refereeing
my application in what must have been effusive terms. I must also thank the
staff in the research office at Oxford Brookes University for their assistance
in managing the award and Paul Whitty, School of Arts Research Lead, for
championing my work, offering guidance, and helping me to access institu-
tional research funds to support this project. Joanne Cormac provided able
teaching and administrative cover during my period of leave.
Suzanne Ryan, Editor in Chief, Humanities at Oxford University Press,
New York, was enthusiastic about this project from the outset, and offered
valuable guidance at the proposal stage and thereafter. Victoria Kouznetsov,
Editorial Assistant, Music Books, worked with me tirelessly and with great
patience in preparing the manuscript for submission. I am extremely
grateful to them both, as well as to Tim Rutherford- Johnson, copy editor,
and all the staff at OUP who worked on the book during the production
process.
I was pleased to be invited to present my research-i n- progress to col-
leagues and students at the University of Bristol, the Institute of Musical
Research, and at Royal Holloway, University of London. I also pre-
sented conference papers on this subject at the 77th Annual Meeting of
the American Musicological Society (San Francisco), the Royal Musical
Association Annual Conference (University of Birmingham), the First
Transnational Opera Studies Conference (Bologna), the Music and the
Middlebrow Conference (University of Notre Dame, London Global
Gateway), and several conferences at Oxford Brookes University under the
auspices of the OBERTO opera research unit. All of the feedback I received
from audience members at these events helped to shape the book.
( xi )
( xii ) Acknowledgements
In terms of wider public engagement, I was delighted to be commis-
sioned to write articles on my 1920s interests for History Today and Classical
Music Magazine. Soprano Samantha Hay and pianist Luke Green kindly
helped me to recreate a 1920s celebrity concert at Oxford Brookes in 2015.
I am extremely grateful to BBC Radio 3 for giving me the opportunity to
make a radio documentary about operatic culture in 1920s London (‘A
Flapper’s Guide to the Opera’, broadcast October 2017). Ellie Mant skil-
fully produced a wonderful programme, and contributors Oliver Double,
Paul Rodmell, Catherine Tackley, Elin Manahan Thomas, and Michael
Volpe helped to bring the subject matter to life.
Most of the research for this book was conducted at the Bodleian Library,
University of Oxford, the British Library, and the Victoria & Albert Theatre
and Performance Collections, and I am grateful to the staff at all three insti-
tutions. My thinking on the subject of opera in the 1920s has been shaped
by conversations with colleagues and research students working in related
fields, as well as with members of the online opera community. Such con-
versations have been so numerous that I must apologise for the many omis-
sions, but I would like to single out Mark Berry, Harriet Boyd- Bennett,
Jennifer Daniel, Andrew Holden, Matt Houlbrook, Steven Martin, James
Nott, Jane Potter, Clair Rowden, Hugo Shirley, Laura Tunbridge, and Emma
West for sharing sources and references. I am grateful to Sophie Ratcliffe for
helping me to finalise the book’s title and to the two anonymous readers
selected by OUP, whose comments helped me to write a far better book.
I must express particular gratitude to three friends who gave their time
with astonishing generosity to, variously, read the manuscript and offer
feedback, help me source images, advise on contractual matters, and gener-
ally push me to reach the finishing line. Anna Maria Barry, Barbara Eichner,
Paul Parker: profound thanks. Alan and Pauline Wilson and Clive and Joy
Timms all offered support and encouragement from afar over a period of
many years. I am extremely grateful to Andrew Timms for many things,
but particularly for holding the fort at home during my period of sabbat-
ical leave, at a time when he was starting a highly demanding new job of
his own, and for expertly proofreading the final manuscript. Finally, I am
grateful in all sorts of ways to the dedicatee of this book, my lovely little boy
Sebastian.
Alexandra Wilson
Oxford, May 2018
NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS
In footnotes, the following abbreviations are used for commonly refer-
enced journals:
ILN The Illustrated London News
LM The London Mercury
MM The Musical Mirror
MNH The Musical News and Herald
MO Musical Opinion
MS The Musical Standard
MT The Musical Times
( xiii )
