Operatic Encounters with New Media

The turn of the twentieth century brought new media technologies that many creative industries, including opera, had to learn to contend with. In spite of its strong legacy, the Italian opera industry was suddenly forced to adapt to rapid developments in sound recording, silent cinema, and the eventual arrival of sound film.In this book, Christy Thomas Adams draws on extensive new archival research into early twentieth-century new media technologies and the Italian opera industry to argue that historical grand narratives of this time-that Italian opera was in crisis at the turn of the twentieth-century, that the birth of film spelled the end of opera, and that copyright destroys creativity-have oversimplified the effects of technology. By looking at both creators and new media forms, the book paints a more accurate picture of the impact that emerging technologies had on the Italian opera industry. This book gives academics of musicology, Italian studies, film studies, and related fields insight into how the historical intersection between opera and media laid the groundwork for their intersection today.