Abstract

A Class Act

This article discusses the books "Opera in America: A Cultural History," by John Dizikies, and "The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire," by Wayne Koestenbaum. An index to the social semantics of opera is to be found in the fact, well treated by Dizikes, that opera in the United States came early on to be identified with Europe, the fons et origo of true high art for America's wealthy. The height of style and the height of camp, endlessly replaying the music of the past in a determinedly a historical manner, using some of the world's most beautiful music to tell stories hard to take seriously by themselves, a high-class entertainment that at its best can operate as effectively as a romance novel or a movie, opera is a dead art form that keeps on living.