ABSTRACT
From the perspective of the twenty-first century, it might seem wilfully perverse to choose to broach the subject of classics and opera in a volume on popular culture and nationalism. Classics as a discipline has struggled to shake off a reputation for elitism, fostered by the later Victorian British school system, which made Greek and Latin the privileged training for the future rulers of the empire. 1 Opera’s pricing and social cachet make it a regular icon in the popular press for the snobby separation of high art and popular culture. Both classics and opera claim a specific and special internationalism—classics in part because of its role in the formation of European and American cultural values, as well as the function of Latin for so many years as a lingua franca to transcend national borders; opera claims a similar status in part because of its international circulation of singers, music, performances, and audiences, where the economics of the field is often concealed in the ideological promotion of the ability of music to transcend the hostilities of social and national difference.
