ABSTRACT
The elaborate hierarchy of discourses discussed in Chapter 1, and the stratified priesthood which articulates, sanctifies and guards its 'secrets', does not exist in a material vacuum. Opera is the dramatisation of music and text, but dramatisations and the custombuilt theatres in which they are mounted are expensive, their costs justified on national, political and social as well as aesthetic grounds, their audiences formally and spatially differentiated by wealth and status. Opera has social meaning as a form of art and entertainment of rare distinction, uniquely routinised in ritual and display at all levels of the theatre, but especially in the stalls, dress circle and boxes. As such, opera reflects, symbolises and serves the wealth, status and political interests of the dominant class, regardless of national and state differences. On a practical level, opera's materialism is a major preoccupation in terms of the large number and range of resources required; its sources of income from state subsidies and box office revenues to private and corporate gifts, all insufficient to prevent opera from being a loss-making institution, its finances are always in a parlous state. Where subsidies are provided, populations must be
persuaded that their taxes should support such reputationally elitist entertainments; if ticket prices are high, audiences must be persuaded that their purchase is essential. Consumers at all levels are tempted to develop tastes for all manner of related 'opera' commodities-CDs, videos, books, films, laser discs, holidays and so on. As a largely 'museum' culture it has to be constantly recycled, repromoted, its discourses rewritten and restated, but it is driven by underlying market pressures which repeatedly distance and conceal the 'original' creative act behind its constant recommodification.
