Local Glories: Opera Houses on Main Street, Where Art and Community Meet

By Ann Satterthwaite

A comprehensive study of mainly rural opera houses focusing on history, theater, opera, entertainment, immigrants, architecture, and planning and the actors, patrons, impresarios, and audiences that sustained them in different states.

Uses case studies from Maine, Colorado, New York, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Vermont

Suggests that small town opera houses, mostly ventures of local patrons, feature distinctly American aspirations of cultural entrepreneurism and civic optimism

Stresses the social and cultural nature of these halls

Assesses different roles of these multi-purpose halls in providing communal creative energy in the nineteenth century and today

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Code: 23417

Member price: $31.46