Democratizing Opera in America, 1895 to the Present

DEMOCRATIZING OPERA IN AMERICA, 1895 TO THE PRESENT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Daniela Smolov Levy May 2014 © 2014 by Daniela Smolov Levy. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/ys875gk2432 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Karol Berger, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Thomas Grey I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Stephen Hinton Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost for Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii Abstract Despite opera’s well-known exclusivity, the genre has in fact consistently been the target of popularizing initiatives, a point often overlooked in accounts of its history. This dissertation identifies and explains trends in efforts to democratize opera in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Examining both traditional live performance and opera’s dissemination through new media formats, this research is the first to illuminate patterns in the great variation in the presentation style of popularly oriented opera in America over the last century, revealing novel source materials that challenge existing views of the genre. I argue that these little-explored democratizing initiatives have been dominated by ideals of uplift (1895-1920), integration (1920-1970), and authenticity (1970-present). Three case studies represent the prevailing trend of each era: Henry Savage’s English Grand Opera Company (1895- 1912), the NBC-TV Opera Theater (1949-64), and the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts (2006-present [2014]). I also show how changing ideologies about the role of “high culture” in society, sociodemographic shifts in the composition of the middle and upper classes and the immigrant population, and technological advances in mass media such as TV and HD satellite broadcasts have informed the emergence and character of these opera popularization strategies. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation could never have taken shape were it not for the help and guidance of many people. My adviser, Karol Berger, forced me to scrutinize and clarify my arguments. He encouraged me and gave me the confidence to pursue a variety of methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches that enhanced the project while helping me maintain thematic unity. Tom Grey and Stephen Hinton both provided valuable advice at various stages of the project and offered meticulous and insightful commentary. Discussions about genre and cultural hierarchies with Charlie Kronengold in the fall of my first year of graduate school piqued my interest in the topic and guided my initial forays into the subject matter. On a personal note, I also owe thanks to my parents, Alex and Inna Smolov, who cultivated in me a love of music and a curiosity about art and culture. My father-in-law, Dan Levy, was instrumental to the project, helping me develop my ideas as well as commenting on my writing. Above all, I owe thanks to my husband, Morris, whose constant support and frank input not only helped me refine my thoughts but also emboldened me to consider new approaches to my questions. Together with our son, Isaac, he has led me to view both work and life in new and wonderful ways. v Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………31 Interlude 1………………………………………………………………………138 Chapter 2………………………………………………………………………………..151 Interlude 2………………………………………………………………………265 Chapter 3………………………………………………………………………………..279 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...361 vi Introduction Opera’s popular image – elderly ladies in mink coats and diamonds holding up their opera glasses to scrutinize Mrs. Higgins in the opposite box – reflects its enduring association with social and cultural exclusivity. Yet probably many more people in recent years have experienced opera in their local movie theater, dressed in jeans and sneakers and eating popcorn. Such different audiences reflect the fact that despite opera’s elite reputation, the genre in America has consistently been the target of “democratizing” efforts, a point often overlooked in accounts of its history. These diverse initiatives, variously known as “cheap opera,” “popular opera,” “educational opera,” “opera for the people,” or “opera for the masses,” have been united by the common goal of attracting larger and more socially heterogeneous audiences. By examining opera’s democratized forms, I seek to analyze its hybridity, its reputation on the one hand as the province of the wealthy and musically educated, and on the other hand as appealing to the mass public. My project thus explores how this peculiar elite-popular tension has played out in opera’s performance history in America. Some scholarship has addressed specific aspects of popularly oriented opera in America, but my research is the first to illuminate trends in the great variation in its presentation style over the last century. As a result, current scholarship can offer only an incomplete view of opera in America, one which I aim to fill out. This gap in the literature may arise partly from what scholar of American popular theater David Savran has called the “prejudice against popular forms” among academics who “could do worse than to reconsider the kinds of theatrical practice that have held millions spellbound but 1 have been routinely dismissed.”1 Although opera over the last century has not been considered a popular genre, its explicitly popular manifestations – some of which have in fact reached millions – have received strikingly little attention. My dissertation, therefore, identifies and explains trends in efforts to democratize opera in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present day, using sociocultural context in order to understand opera popularization. The central question of the dissertation is twofold: 1) what is the dominant focus of different eras’ efforts to democratize opera in America, and 2) what are the ideological, sociodemographic, and technological factors that have spurred the emergence, and shaped the character, of these democratizing endeavors? Uncovering the reasons for the appearance of these initiatives to bring “opera to the masses” and for the tremendous variation in presentation style provides a key to understanding changing attitudes toward high culture in American society, thus shedding light on opera’s significance as a barometer of social and cultural values. Situating Topic in the Field In examining opera’s relationship to questions of class, status, institutions, and ideologies, my research is inherently interdisciplinary. Much of the existing scholarship on opera has been conducted by musicologists as well as cultural historians, theater historians, scholars of media studies and cultural studies, and sociologists. Within musicology, my research engages not only with opera studies and reception history but also with performance studies, which, as Mary Ann Smart has observed, employs an “event-centered approach [that] takes seriously the exchange between performer and 1 David Savran, “Toward a Historiography of the Popular,” Theatre Survey 45, no. 2 (November 2004). 2 audience in a specific place and time, regarding with suspicion the idea of the work – the fixed, notated texts that carry the expectation of being executed the same way time after time, following the directives of a controlling author.”2 Raymond Knapp has also called for “a perspective more centered on performance and less beholden to inherited notions of authenticity or text-bound standards of value.”3 Analyzing the variation in the way the same operas have been performed stands at the heart of my research, thus falling into the field of performance studies that focuses more on the diverse manifestations of artworks than on the particulars of the score or libretto of the artworks themselves. Brief Literature Review My research addresses debates over the accessibility, functions, and connotations of opera and, by extension, of high culture. Some scholars who have explored these issues in the American opera context include Lawrence Levine, Katherine Preston, Joseph Horowitz, and John Dizikes. Levine’s influential discussion of the late nineteenth- century “sacralization” of high culture is particularly important to my research, since this was the phenomenon that formed the basis for opera’s enduring elite reputation, a feature that democratizers have engaged in a variety of ways. His work is also valuable in pointing to the fact that cultural hierarchies often do not reflect any intrinsic

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