A meticulously researched history of operatic music as performed in
San Francisco from the Gold Rush to the Civil War. The subtitle
saves this admirable volume from a truth-in-advertising charge.
Martin (Aspects of Verdi, 1988, etc.) sees the Bay City's growing
acclaim for Verdi's music as a paradigm for the development of
musical taste in a town that grew from frontier outpost to
cosmopolitan bastion in little more than a decade - but this
argument seems beside the point. The author's more substantial -
and more interesting - story is how 19th-century European opera
became a local mania in a city built by roughnecks and miners on
the other side of the world from Milan and London. As Martin notes,
if today's New Yorkers shared the same enthusiasm for opera as San
Franciscans in the years 1851-60, the demand would require 20
additional Met-sized opera houses, all playing every night. Against
this background of frenzied enthusiasm, Martin presents a detailed,
scholarly history of the singers who came to San Francisco (many of
them from South American opera troupes), what they sang, where they
sang, and how they were received. In doing so, he provides a potent
look at American cultural history: the audiences who spat and
filled the theater with cigar smoke, who broke into cheers before
the music ended, and who engaged in fistfights and duels, bringing
the grand gestures of romantic opera into real life. The time and
place championed democratic populism, but also saw itself as
"larger than life" - and opera, with its appeal to the emotions,
was ideal entertainment. New operas, hot off the presses of
European music publishers, were received with the same intense,
lively interest that today greets Hollywood movies. A genuine
contribution to the history of art and society during the
tumultuous years of this country's adolescence. Its primary appeal,
though, is to students of operatic history and those who have
permanently left their hearts in you-know-where. (Kirkus Reviews)
Opera is a fragile, complex art, but it flourished extravagantly in
San Francisco during the Gold Rush years, a time when daily life in
the city was filled with gambling, duels, murder, and suicide. In
the history of the United States there has never been a rougher
town than Gold Rush San Francisco, yet there has never been a
greater frenzy for opera than developed there in these exciting
years. How did this madness for opera take root and grow? Why did
the audience's generally drunken, brawling behavior gradually
improve? How and why did Verdi emerge as the city's favorite
composer? These are the intriguing themes of George Martin's
enlightening and wonderfully entertaining story. Among the
incidents recounted are the fist fight that stopped an opera
performance and ended in a fatal duel; and the brothel madam who,
by sitting in the wrong row of a theater, caused a fracas that
resulted in the formation of the Vigilantes of 1856. Martin weaves
together meticulously gathered social, political, and musical facts
to create this lively cultural history. His study contributes to a
new understanding of urban culture in the Jacksonian-Manifest
Destiny eras, and of the role of opera in cities during this time,
especially in the American West. Over it all soars Verdi's somber,
romantic music, capturing the melancholy, the feverish joy, and the
idealism of his listeners.
General
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