Katherine K. Preston's new book about English-language opera in nineteenth-century America taps into a number of key trends in current musicology. The first of these is a growing focus (largely by US-based scholars) upon hitherto neglected aspects of American music and musical life, historical and contemporary, often with the explicit intention of redressing a long disciplinary bias towards the canonical European repertoire. The second is the expanding field of transnationalism studies, which examines the way in which musical works produced in one culture are variously transformed and received in another (very few of the operas discussed here were American in origin). The third is an emerging body of work that seeks to challenge stereotypes that have built up around opera as an “elitist” form of art, using historical evidence to demonstrate the redundancy of such tired claims. Preston's book makes a rich contribution to all three fields.

Opera for the People charts fashions in opera performance in late nineteenth-century America, shedding light on a vibrant and active musical scene. When one thinks of musicians on the road, rock bands might nowadays spring to mind, but Preston traces the journeys of numerous travelling opera troupes who played in theatres large and small around the United States, with varying degrees of success. She examines the relative decline across this period in the popularity of European (primarily Italian) opera, which was appropriated by an elite social set, and the corresponding rise of English-language opera, comprising both foreign operas translated into English and (to a lesser extent) operas written in English, and light opera in particular. In so doing, she is able to tell a fascinating story about American cultural identities in the late nineteenth century and the formation of a national taste. When it comes to the history of opera, politics are rarely far from the surface, and neither is the question whether the art form is better classed as art – and something with an “uplifting” purpose – or entertainment. The author weaves these broader debates skilfully through her narrative.

Preston has amassed a vast wealth of source material and deployed it to interesting ends. She has scrupulously researched the repertoire of the era, which included many now long-forgotten operas, as well as the itineraries and business dealings of the various troupes. The author has much to say about ticket prices, about seating arrangements, and about the sorts of audience who attended the opera in a variety of different cities and regions. We learn, as well, about performance practices of the era, such as singers routinely inserting arias into completely different operas from the ones in which they originated. Descriptions of particular nights at the theatre are vividly described. Above all, this is very much a human story and we come away with the impression that we really know the personalities involved. As the title suggests, a particular focus of the book is the role of women (usually prima donnas turned managers) in setting up opera troupes during this period. The trend is a striking one: this is a story of real female emancipation in an era in which professional opportunities for women were limited.

Some chapters in the book are overviews of certain periods; others adopt a case-study format, examining the activities of individual troupes, some of them successful, others less so. Particularly interesting is a detailed chapter about a specific singer–manager, Emma Abbott, known as the “people's prima donna.” A capable but not outstanding singer, Abbott is of interest more for her business nous and her conscious cultivation of a down-to-earth American persona than for her singing: she marketed herself as, in Preston's words, an “anti-diva and a scrapper” (408). This, it seems, is exactly what American audiences in the late nineteenth century wanted: opera singers who didn't seem too European or too aristocratic, as well as operas in the vernacular.

Funding from the American Musicological Society has given the author the opportunity to fill her book with a rich array of illustrations that bring the subject to life. We are presented with images of the exteriors and interiors of opera houses all over the United States (many presumably long demolished), engravings and photographs of the notable personalities discussed, programmes, posters, and satirical cartoons. At 618 pages, the book could perhaps have benefited from a slightly firmer editorial hand, as well as a slightly more detailed consideration of the broader questions about canon formation and writing music history that are tackled tantalizingly briefly in the conclusion. Nevertheless, for those interested in the subject matter, this is a veritable treasure trove of information.