| FT-254515-17 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | Kristen M. Turner | Opera on the American Popular Stage, 1890-1915 | 6/1/2017 - 7/31/2017 | $6,000.00 | Kristen | M. | Turner | | | | North Carolina State University | Raleigh | NC | 27695-0001 | USA | 2017 | Music History and Criticism | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 6000 | 0 | 6000 | 0 | A book-length study of the impact of European opera on the American popular stage, 1890-1915.
My proposed book, Opera on the American Popular Stage, 1890–1915, examines the use of opera in vaudeville, early musical comedies, and American comic operas written and performed by African American and white musicians. Opera contributed a rich palette of music, plot lines, and cultural stereotypes that nourished new productions. The genre had a widespread presence on the popular stage and took on a range of meanings that sometimes were contradictory and, depending upon the context, often race-specific. During the era when Jim Crow laws were being passed, blacks and whites viewed opera through the lens of race, class, and gender, coming to different conclusions as to its social and cultural meanings. Each chapter of the book will focus on a particular manifestation of opera drawing upon methodologies from gender, African American, theater, and American studies using examples from all three types of entertainments. |