Musical theatre in Europe 1830-1945

About this book

From the mid-1800s in Europe there was a vigorous and enthusiastic expansion of diverse forms of musical theatre. The cabarets, music-halls and private theatres rubbed shoulders with the subsidised and official theatres that offered more established types of spectacle, creating a milieu which welcomed a number of new musical and theatrical genres which fed from and into one another. In the midst of this creative dynamism, alongside revues and café-concert spectacles, operetta and its derivative forms took centre stage. Divided into six sections, the volume covers the revue de fin d'année as a theatrical genre which also influenced all other lighter genres in France during its heyday ; dance music in Offenbach's operettas and his musical recreation of the Parisian soundscape ; transformation of the opera repertoire in operetta and revue parodies ; Viennese and English operetta and musical comedy from the end of the 'reign' of Gilbert and Sullivan until the outbreak of World War II ; diverse theatrical practices from Parisian puppet theatre and the posters of musical spectacles in the café conchantant, to contemporary Italian operetta before the rise of Fascism, and its dissemination, via the impresario Vittorio Rosi, in Japan.