For a famously elite pastime, opera of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (never mind the nineteenth) sometimes seems strangely fixated on the progress of social equality—not because back then its appeal extended further across the classes (although here and there it might have) but because of its origins in court culture and, especially, its function as an arena for debate about the most important topical issues. This function is Cohen’s object of study, which he pursues through a rich network of texts: philosophical tracts, literature, political pamphlets, and private correspondence, as well as librettos. But he ignores almost completely its literal, physical embodiment, the reception of opera by audiences in the theater.
This absence of “live” reception is understandable; the relevant sources are scarce, uneven, and/or unreliable. But it is certainly something of a drawback. Cohen’s discussion of his methodology, which he idiosyncratically places at the end of the volume,...