The hugely discrepant valuations of the alterities of opera and racial slavery – differing additionally between the period under consideration and our own – would seem to preclude their being addressed in the same article. The former has been lauded as the ne plus ultra of human artistic expression. The latter was embraced as an essential economic driver, and morally, spiritually and legally sanctioned by the finest Anglo philosophical, religious and legal minds of the time. That the enslaved decried and rejected their capture and enforced labour – through suicide, rebellion, flight, sabotage and cultural separation – has long been clear. The use of the profits, obtained through the sale of commodities that slave labour produced, to fund musical activities, including opera, has remained hidden. By using the published lists of subscribers (issued as books and fans) for the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, and combining that information with what can gleaned from demographic, genealogical and slavery sources, the extent to which the opera was dependent upon families whose wealth lay in plantation ownership or other forms of profit allied to it is established. The proportion is higher than might be supposed. Three families – Lewis, Young and the Heywood sisters – are spotlighted in case studies of box subscribers.

Recent scholarship at the crossroads of opera and Habsburg studies has emphasised the centrality of Italian opera within the political agenda of the Congress era (1814–22). It was a particularly effective means to project prestige, cosmopolitanism and belonging within a new geopolitical order, as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia was integrated under the Habsburg Crown. While much attention has been given to performances of Italian opera at the Viennese court theatres, the role of suburban venues has so far been largely neglected. This article aims to demonstrate the ‘weight’ that the so-called ‘light’ genres carried within the cultural life of the capital and across the Habsburg lands. Two parodies written by Adolf Bäuerle for the Theater in der Leopoldstadt in Vienna – Tankredi (1817, music by Wenzel Müller) and Die falsche Prima Donna in Krähwinkel (1818, music by Ignaz Schuster) – serve as case studies for a discussion of the fluidity of genres, operatic voices and audiences, and the role of such singers as Gentile Borgondio, Angelica Catalani and Ignaz Schuster as ‘aural ambassadors’ of the Habsburg cultural project.

In his operas, Mozart followed contemporary practice by using the clarinet to set the mood for amorous scenes, but he adapted this into a new kind of topic that dramatises his characters’ changing self-knowledge and growing enlightenment. In so doing, he emphasised both their recognition of their true feelings and the political and moral implications for their subsequent actions. This is exemplified in La clemenza di Tito, in which a clarinet (or basset horn) serves as an important soloistic voice whose dialogue with the protagonist illuminates their inner struggles with conflicting emotional, social and political realities as they move towards new understanding.

This article provides a snapshot of the Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company’s ‘Coronation’ tour in 1937, focusing particularly on the company’s time in Johannesburg. It considers the Carl Rosa’s tour as a ‘cultural colonisation’ endeavour on the part of the British Empire, aimed at reinforcing identity politics at a time when loyalty to the Empire was waning. The article examines the significance of the Carl Rosa’s tour within the broader context of British colonial relations and the Coronation celebrations of George VI in the Union. Central to its argument is the analysis of the tour’s commemorative programme, published by African Consolidated Theatres (ACT), which serves as a lens to understand the articulation of Dominion South Africanism amongst English-speaking audiences. Through an examination of primary sources and historical context, this article sheds light on the complexities of imperial encounters and the role of cultural exchange in perpetuating colonial power dynamics.

In seventeenth-century Paris, the performance of an opera or other staged spectacle was an interactive event that engendered countless subsequent performative acts. An operatic premiere infused the Parisian songscape with new musical material that reverberated in various social spheres, from the galant airs performed by mondains at gatherings of literary elites to the ribald songs performed by street singers. The chansons of Philippe-Emmanuel de Coulanges provide a window into the musical games that unfolded across fashionable Paris. These traces of ephemeral song networks illuminate how spectacles had a ripple effect throughout Paris and beyond when individuals performed, manipulated, quoted and parodied operatic artefacts in various social contexts and spaces. The study of the ways in which audiences interacted with operatic music in turn reveals how contemporary spectators understood, listened to and valued a work and its components, as they dissected and reused elements in their quotidian social experiences.

Nineteenth-century Italian opera scholars used to be the cool kids in town. During the 1990s, we swanned through annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, delighted that our field of study, long situated at the periphery of the discipline, was heading straight toward the centre. My decision to write a dissertation about Italian opera performers was not prompted by the siren song of potential trendiness; nevertheless, it was thrilling to be among the contributors to a collective effort that was perceived as being on the cutting edge, or at least as cutting edge as musicology could get at the time. It didn’t hurt either that this endeavour entailed touching down in Italy every now and again for some of the best parties (ahem, I mean, conferences) ever convened. I know I am idealising the past, but these thoughts came rushing back to me in a rosy hue a few months ago when a colleague approached me with this whopper: ‘Remember when nineteenth-century studies were hip? We’re the old-fashioned ones now.’ True, studies of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and their contemporaries are no longer in the vanguard, but books by Emanuele Senici, Mary Ann Smart and Francesca Vella demonstrate that there is still a lot of life left in the world of nineteenth-century Italian opera studies. We’re still very cool.

The debut of a Japanese exhibit at the 1867 Exposition Universelle prompted a new enthusiasm for Japan (dubbed japonisme) that soon gripped artistic and literary circles in Paris. Camille Saint-Saëns's one-act opera La princesse jaune, which premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1872, emerged at the height of this fervour. At first glance, it might seem that La princesse jaune simply followed the trend. Yet, on closer examination it is possible to understand its story of an infatuated young artist as a playful, subversive commentary on japonisme. This article thus poses the question: How might we understand La princesse jaune as a parody? To answer this, I begin by considering its protagonist as a mockery of the elitist and exclusive japoniste subcultures that emerged in the wake of the Exposition. Borrowing from William Cheng's concept of ‘opera en abyme’, I then consider the opera's dream sequence, examining how its shifting diegesis highlights the fragile and ephemeral nature of the Orientalist dream. Ultimately, I argue that reading La princesse jaune as a parody allows us not only to reframe the work within Saint-Saëns's œuvre, but also to reassess its place within the wider contexts of nineteenth-century operatic Orientalism.