Abstract
Have different methods of financing the performing arts had an effect on thequality or diversity of thestock of works to be performed? This paper contrasts experience in the HolyRoman Empire and Italyfrom the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century when copyright lawsbegan to play a major rolein the economics of composition. The period 1751–1790 strongly confirmshypotheses that patron-drivenopera would be expected to be qualitatively superior to market-driven opera. Italian experience from1810–1840, however, suggests that this result cannot be generalized.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barraclough, Geoffrey (1946) The Origins of Modern Germany. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Baumol, William J. and Baumol, Hilda (1994) "On the Economics of Composition in Mozart's Vienna". Journal of Cultural Economics 18: 171-198.
Baumol, William J. and Bowen, William G. (1966) Performing Arts, the Economic Dilemma: a Study of Problems Common to the Theater, Opera, Music and Dance. Twentieth Century Fund, New York.
Bianconi, Lorenzo and Pestelli, Giorgio (eds.) (1998) Opera Production and its Resources. (Translation by Lydia G. Cochrane of Vol. 4 of Storia dell'opera Italiana, Edizioni di Torino, 1987), University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Bianconi, Lorenzo and Walker, Thomas (1984) "Production, Consumption and Political Function of Seventeenth Century Opera", in Fenlon (1984), pp. 209-296.
Braunbehrens, Volkmar (1990) Mozart in Vienna 1781-91. (German edition 1986, translation, Timothy Bell), Grove Weidenfeld, New York.
Cowen, Tyler (1998) In Praise of Commercial Culture. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Einstein, Alfred (1964) Gluck. Dent, London.
Fenlon, Iain (ed.) (1984) Early Music History: Studies in Mediaeval and Early Modern Music, 4. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Gaxotte, Pierre (1975) Frederick the Great. (Translation R.A. Bell), Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. (Original edition, Yale University Press, 1942).
Grout, Donald Jay (1998) A Short History of Opera. Third Edition with Hermine Weigel Williams, Columbia University Press, New York.
Kerman, Joseph (1988) Opera and Drama. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Kindleberger, Charles P. (1993) A Financial History of Western Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Landon, H. Robbins (1988) 1791, Mozart's Last Year. Thames and Hudson, London.
Lindenberger, Herbert (1984) Opera: The Extravagant Art. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
Parker, Roger (ed.) (1996) The Oxford History of Opera. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Parsons, Charles A. (1989) The Mellen Opera Reference Index: Vols 7 and 8: Opera Premières, A Geographical Index. Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter.
Pestelli, Giorgio (1984) The Age of Mozart and Beethoven. (Translation by Eric Cross of La età di Mozart e di Beethoven, Edizioni di Torino, 1979), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Phelps Brown, E.H. and Hopkins, Sheila V. (1956) "Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables". Economica XXII: 296-314.
Price, Curtis, Milhous, Judith, and Hume, Robert D. (1995) Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth Century London: Vol I, The King's Theatre, Haymarket, 1778-1791. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Rosen, Charles, (1997) The Classical Style. W.W. Norton, New York.
Rosselli, John (1984) The Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi: The Role of the Impresario. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Rosselli, John (1992) Singers of Italian Opera: The History of a Profession. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Rosselli, John (1998) "Opera Production, 1780-1880", in Bianconi and Pestelli (1998), pp. 81-164.
Sadie, Stanley (ed.) (1992) The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan, London (referred to as NGDO).
Simonton, Dean Keith (1984) Genius, Creativity and Leadership. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Surian, Elvidio (1998) "The Opera Composer", in Bianconi and Pestelli (1998), pp. 291-394.
Weinstock, Herbert (1987) Rossini: A Biography. Limelight Editions, New York.
Wellesz, Egon and Sternfeld, Frederick (eds.) (1973) The Age of Enlightenment 1745-1790. New Oxford History of Music, Vol VII, Oxford University Press, Oxford.