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"Who Will Buy?"

其他書名	An Examination of Historical and Contemporary Practices of Operatic Patronage in Twentieth-century America
出版	Northwestern University, 2003
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=G09HAQAACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋In trying to formulate a sense of how twentieth-century American composers have contributed to the seemingly impermeable operatic canon, this dissertation examines the development of an opera industry in the United States, from its nineteenth-century infrastructure to its current network of support. I probe notions of "repertoire" and of "opera" from the perspectives of various parties: house administration, composers and other members of their creative teams, and audience members (established and novice). Today the commissioning and producing of new works is often cited as a means of expanding both the genre's repertoire and its audience base. However, as evident by audience surveys and focus groups, as well as the marketing tactics of opera house officials and the reviews of contemporary critics, a reverent familiarity for older "chestnuts" informs the mode in which new works are offered to opera-goers, and attempts to expand the audience for opera in general may ultimately undercut efforts to pitch new opera in particular. Critics have become more mindful of the history of opera as a genre and more conscious of their roles as commentators on a canon of "greats." Their attempts to place new performers and composers within that tradition suggest that perhaps there is no language to describe newness without recalling the old. Maintaining the nineteenth-century repertoire as the recurring criterion for subsequent efforts also hints that the true target of new works---then as now---is not necessarily a "new" audience after all.