Search results for ""author daniel snowman""

Historian and author Daniel Snowman (b. 1938) writes of a Jewish child's memories of the War, gives colourful inside accounts of life in Cambridge, JFK's America (including Civil Rights) and the new University of Sussex, of the BBC in its heyday, choral concerts under the world's top conductors and extended visits to the Arctic and Antarctic. Daniel watches Churchill making one of his final speeches, interviews Harry Truman about Hiroshima, spends a week in Bayreuth with Wagner's daughter-in-law, meets Pope John-Paul II, Isaiah Berlin and Lord Snowdon, while getting to know Plácido Domingo and the most famous among the ‘Hitler Emigrés’.

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Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) was the Shakespeare of opera, the composer of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Aida and Otello. The chorus of Hebrew slaves from Nabucco (1842) is regarded in Italy as virtually an alternative national anthem – and the great tragedian rounded off his career fifty years later with a rousing comedy, Falstaff.When Verdi was born, much of northern Italy was under Napoleonic rule, and Verdi grew up dreaming of a time when the peninsula might be governed by Italians. When this was achieved, in 1861, he became a deputy in the first all-Italian parliament.While in his 20s, Verdi lost his two children and then his wife (many Verdi operas feature poignant parent-child relationships). Later, he retired, with his second wife, to his beloved farmlands, refusing for long stretches to return to composition. Verdi died in January 1901, universally mourned as the supreme embodiment of the nation he had helped create.Daniel Snowman was born in London, educated at Cambridge and Cornell and at 24 became a Lecturer at the University of Sussex, going on to become BBC Radio’s Chief Producer, Features. Since 2004 has held a Senior Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research (University of London). Recent books include a study of the cultural impact of the ‘Hitler Emigrés’, a collection of critical essays on the work of today's leading historians and The Gilded Stage: A Social History of Opera, reviewed by Tim Blanning as ‘A mighty achievement, by far and away the best history of opera available’.

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The Gilded Stage is a comprehensive tour of the world of opera. From its origins in the courts of northern Italy, to its internationally recognised position in modern culture, Snowman explores the social history of opera houses and impresarios, composers and patrons, artists and audiences. Even the most flamboyant composers could scarcely have imagined the global reach of opera in our own times. More opera is performed, financed, seen, heard, filmed and broadcast than ever before, and the world's leading performers are worshipped and paid like pop stars. Yet the art form is widely derided as 'elitist' and parts of the classical recording business appear close to bankruptcy. Pinpointing the scandals, forgotten history and key revolutions in the form with light erudition and a brilliant anecdotal eye, Daniel Snowman reveals that the world of opera has always known crisis and uncertainty - and the resulting struggles have often proved every bit as dramatic as those portrayed onstage.

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As we approach the new millennium, we find ourselves reassessing the past and looking forward to the future. Has the prospect of a new century always provided a "sense of an ending"? In this timely and stimulating book, experts on every century since the fourteenth each explore the characteristics of a different final decade and find that a consciousness of time has indeed influenced the way people perceive their place in history. The writers—Paul Strohm on the 1390s (when signs of a new time consciousness first emerged), Malcolm Vale on the 1490s, Ian Archer on the 1590s, Peter Earle on the 1690s, Roy Porter on the 1790s, and Asa Briggs on the 1890s and 1990s—discuss what is common and what is distinctive to each period. Investigating cultural and intellectual attitudes, economic and technological developments, and artistic, scientific, and political change, they capture the atmosphere of each end of century. As well as the great watersheds of history, the authors explore the daily lives of ordinary citizens, recounting personal histories and subtle shifts in diet, fashion and design, sex and gender roles, and relations between rich and poor, and the emergence of language. Illustrations from both high and popular art provide arresting images of the cultural and social fabric of each community.The year 2000 will be the first millennium humankind has consciously experienced: we look back not a hundred but a thousand years, and in looking back we are better prepared to plan ahead. From the apocalyptic vision of medieval Judgment Day sermons to the decadence of the current fin de siècle, from the invention of printing to cloning and computerization, this book is a pertinent guide to the future as well as to the past.

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