Someone Else's Music

Someone Else's Music reveals a hidden history of popular opera-going in Britain, which defies the opera-elitism stereotype. At the same time, the book traces how, when, and why that stereotype arose.

Professor Alexandra Wilson is a musicologist and cultural historian. After holding two Oxford Junior Research Fellowships, she taught at Oxford Brookes University for nineteen years, latterly as Professor of Music and Cultural History. She is currently Researcher in Residence at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. She has previously published The Puccini Problem (2007), Opera in the Jazz Age (2019), Puccini's La bohème (2021) and Puccini in Context (2023). She writes and broadcasts widely about cultural matters and works regularly with the UK's leading opera companies.

- 1: The Elitism Myth
- 2: Opera for All
- 3: (Dis)-Enchanted Gardens
- 4: Opera Goes to War
- 5: Pageantry and Participation
- 6: Counterculture
- 7: A National Opera?
- 8: The E-Word
- 9: A Perfect Storm
- 10: Twenty-First-Century Blues
- 11: This Sceptic Isle
- Conclusion