
Book contents
- Music Theatre and the Holy Roman Empire
- Music Theatre and the Holy Roman Empire
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Music for an Imperial Stage
- 1 An Empire of Theatres
- 2 (In)forming Repertoire
- 3 Letters from the German Stage
- 4 ‘Germany’s Daughter, Melodrama’
- 5 Staging Imperial Identity
- Epilogue: Echoes of an Empire
- Appendix 1: German Theatre Companies and Performance Locations Reported in the Theater-Kalender, c.1800
- Appendix 2: Music Theatre and Musicians Referenced in the Theater-Kalender, c.1800
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - An Empire of Theatres
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2022
- Music Theatre and the Holy Roman Empire
- Music Theatre and the Holy Roman Empire
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Music for an Imperial Stage
- 1 An Empire of Theatres
- 2 (In)forming Repertoire
- 3 Letters from the German Stage
- 4 ‘Germany’s Daughter, Melodrama’
- 5 Staging Imperial Identity
- Epilogue: Echoes of an Empire
- Appendix 1: German Theatre Companies and Performance Locations Reported in the Theater-Kalender, c.1800
- Appendix 2: Music Theatre and Musicians Referenced in the Theater-Kalender, c.1800
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter maps the vast web of German-language theatres that connected Central European audiences around the year 1800. Using periodicals and missives written by those active at these institutions, it investigates how the network functioned in practice as well as how it was imagined across vast distances. It explores the mobility of theatre companies to at once redraw the theatrical map of late eighteenth-century Central Europe and challenge perceptions of oppositional court and public music cultures. The Reich's theatrical network simultaneously existed in the imaginary thanks to print culture and a reading public. While touring companies made the journey from one performance location to the next, readers could be transported to theatres scattered across the Empire with the turn of a page. This rendered the network as much a political and theatrical reality as an imaginary realm, where the bandwidth of data was as important as the institutions, personnel, repertoires, and developments the information conveyed. The Empire’s musico-theatrical complex – both physical and imaginary – was the foundation upon which a shared imperial repertoire could be cultivated.
- Type
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- Information
- Music Theatre and the Holy Roman EmpireThe German Musical Stage at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 42 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022