R. Allen Lott
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195148831
- eISBN:
- 9780199869695
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195148831.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
While in the United States, Henri Herz actively established agents to sell his own pianos and explored the possibilities of building a factory, concert hall, and conservatory, none of which came to ...
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While in the United States, Henri Herz actively established agents to sell his own pianos and explored the possibilities of building a factory, concert hall, and conservatory, none of which came to fruition. Herz's claim that Americans covered the legs of their pianos because of their prudishness is not true; it was a means to protect them. During the 1848-9 season, Herz toured with the Dutch violinist Frans Coenen (1826-1904) and an Italian opera troupe. After appearances in Mexico, Herz gave concerts in San Francisco and Sacramento, California, in 1850 during the height of the gold rush. Herz's American tour reflected a more businesslike approach to musical management under Bernard Ullman, and included almost two hundred concerts in at least fifty-eight cities. His simple but elegant stage manners and his graceful music charmed the American public.Less
While in the United States, Henri Herz actively established agents to sell his own pianos and explored the possibilities of building a factory, concert hall, and conservatory, none of which came to fruition. Herz's claim that Americans covered the legs of their pianos because of their prudishness is not true; it was a means to protect them. During the 1848-9 season, Herz toured with the Dutch violinist Frans Coenen (1826-1904) and an Italian opera troupe. After appearances in Mexico, Herz gave concerts in San Francisco and Sacramento, California, in 1850 during the height of the gold rush. Herz's American tour reflected a more businesslike approach to musical management under Bernard Ullman, and included almost two hundred concerts in at least fifty-eight cities. His simple but elegant stage manners and his graceful music charmed the American public.
Katherine K. Preston
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199371655
- eISBN:
- 9780199371679
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199371655.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Opera
This chapter focuses on the Boston Ideal Opera Company, a comic opera troupe. Its founder, Effie Hinckley Ober, was not a performer, but a businesswoman who owned one of the first musical management ...
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This chapter focuses on the Boston Ideal Opera Company, a comic opera troupe. Its founder, Effie Hinckley Ober, was not a performer, but a businesswoman who owned one of the first musical management firms in the country. Her success in a male-dominated business provides valuable insight into how an ambitious and enterprising woman could navigate a distinctly competitive, virile world in the post-Civil War American social landscape. This chapter covers the Boston Ideals only during the Ober period (1879–1885) and illustrates techniques of management, a hitherto unknown relationship between opera production and the emergence of lyceum bureaus, and performance practice. The company mounted both operettas (Gilbert and Sullivan) and some of the standard works that had been performed by English-language troupes for decades; after Ober’s retirement it continued until 1904 under a new name (the Bostonians) and new management.Less
This chapter focuses on the Boston Ideal Opera Company, a comic opera troupe. Its founder, Effie Hinckley Ober, was not a performer, but a businesswoman who owned one of the first musical management firms in the country. Her success in a male-dominated business provides valuable insight into how an ambitious and enterprising woman could navigate a distinctly competitive, virile world in the post-Civil War American social landscape. This chapter covers the Boston Ideals only during the Ober period (1879–1885) and illustrates techniques of management, a hitherto unknown relationship between opera production and the emergence of lyceum bureaus, and performance practice. The company mounted both operettas (Gilbert and Sullivan) and some of the standard works that had been performed by English-language troupes for decades; after Ober’s retirement it continued until 1904 under a new name (the Bostonians) and new management.