Opera and Capital Cities Beyond the West: Spectacle, Emulation and Cargo Cults, 1900 to the Present

Abstract

This article provides a four-century overview of how opera and capital cities shaped one another, highlighting how opera has long been used to legitimise urban centres of power. To do so, this study first examines the emergence of early opera in seventeenth-century European capitals, traces how the art form and these cities co-developed throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and finally explores the arrival of opera in non-European capitals – a trend beginning in the mid-nineteenth century that continues today. Furthermore, it analyses the histories of Kazakhstan’s former and current capitals, Almaty and Astana, arguing that opera has been leveraged to materialise the distinct urban character of these cities, while simultaneously serving to imagine and perform national identity amidst shifting political landscapes.