"Performed throughout Europe during the 1700s, Italian heroic opera, or opera seria, was the century's most significant musical art form, profoundly engaging such figures as Handel, Mozart, and Cimarosa. Opera and Sovereignty is the first book to address this genre as cultural history, arguing that eighteenth-century opera seria was a product of its time, indexing the confident claims of absolutism early in the century and the political and social upheavals of its later years." "Taking an anthropological approach to European music that is as bold as it is unusual, Martha Feldman traces Italian opera's shift from a mythical assertion of sovereignty, embedded in festive forms and rituals, to a dramatic vehicle that increasingly questioned absolutist ideals while demanding sustained audience attention. She situates these transformations against the backdrop of eighteenth-century Italian culture to show how opera seria both reflected and affected the struggles of rulers to maintain sovereignty in the face of a growing public sphere. In doing so, Feldman brings to life what audiences experienced, demonstrating why the form was such a great international success and explaining ways that audience experiences of the period differed from ours today. Interdisciplinary, with provocative new tools for approaching all opera, Opera and Sovereignty will appeal not only to scholars of music and anthropology, but also to those interested in theater, dance, performance studies, and the history of the Enlightenment."--Jacket.