
During the decades leading up to 1910, Portugal saw vast material improvements under the guise of modernization while in the midst of a significant political transformation - the establishment of the Portuguese First Republic. Urban planning, everyday life, and innovation merged in a rapidly changing Lisbon. Leisure activities for the citizens of the First Republic began to include new forms of musical theater, including operetta and the revue theater. These theatrical forms became an important site for the display of modernity, and the representation of a new national identity.Author João Silva argues that the rise of these genres is inextricably bound to the complex process through which the idea of Portugal was presented, naturalized, and commodified as a modern nation-state. Entertaining Lisbon studies popular entertainment in Portugal and its connections with modern life and nation-building, showing that the promotion of the nation through entertainment permeated the market for cultural goods. Exploring the Portuguese entertainment market as a reflection of ongoing negotiations between local, national, and transnational influences on identity, Silva intertwines representations of gender, class, ethnicity, and technology with theatrical repertoires, street sounds, and domestic music making. An essential work on Portuguese music in the English language, Entertaining Lisbon is a critical study for scholars and students of musicology interested in Portugal, and popular and theatrical musics, as well as historical ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, and urban planning researchers interested in the development of material culture.
This book investigates how the rise of popular musical theater in late 19th-century Lisbon served as a primary vehicle for constructing and commodifying a modern Portuguese national identity. João Paulo Silva, a scholar of musicology, utilizes archival research and cultural analysis to argue that the emergence of operetta and revue theater was not merely a leisure phenomenon but a deliberate negotiation of political and social modernization during the transition to the First Republic. The text examines how these theatrical forms integrated technology, class dynamics, and gender roles to present a cohesive, marketable vision of the nation-state.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars in the fields of musicology and cultural history identify this work as a significant contribution to the study of Iberian popular culture. Experts frequently note the academic rigor of the prose and its utility for researchers examining the intersection of nation-building and material culture.
Page Count:
336
Publication Date:
2016-10-03
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190215704
ISBN-13:
9780190215705
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