Vienna saw the premiere of that most extraordinary work of genius, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, not at a court, palace or prestige venue. This seminal opera made its debut in 1791 at a theater that attracted both a high and lowbrow audience, and regularly featured broad theatre and comic performance. And in the 19th century Italy of the Risorgimento, Verdi’s music was on everyone’s lips – it was the soundtrack, so to speak, for the formation of the Italian state.
By the late 19th century, and into the earliest years of the 20th century, opera was popular culture, an art for the masses that also attracted the wealthiest to gleaming new opera palaces, even as .the growing tides of immigrants from southern Europe also were also humming along.
