Alexandra Wilson's interest in the British operatic scene during the jazz age is longstanding, and, in this book, she imparts her wealth of knowledge in a lively and readable manner. She reveals that opera in the 1920s was the subject of fierce controversy-too highbrow for some, and not highbrow enough for others. Diving into impassioned, often rancorous, debates about opera, Wilson argues that much of the vexation was generation by peculiarly British notions of
nationality and social class. It is essential reading for anyone who remains under the impression that this decade was an operatic wilderness in the UK.
Alexandra Wilson is a musicologist and cultural historian, with research interests focusing primarily upon opera and operatic culture from the nineteenth century to the present. She is Professor of Music at Oxford Brookes University (UK), where she also co-directs the OBERTO opera research unit. Her first monograph The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity (Cambridge University Press) was awarded the American Musicological
Society's Lewis Lockwood Award for a work of outstanding musical scholarship. Alexandra has a high profile as a public musicologist: she has presented numerous broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and has written programme essays and given talks for the UK's leading opera companies.