18 March 2011

The Economics of Operatic Geography

Like Italy, Germany was a loose collection of independent fiefs until the middle of the 19th century. Music was a weapon in the aristocrats’ fierce competition for prestige, helping to account for the disproportionate number of Baroque operas from German and Italian composers as compared with France, which was more centralized.


From here.

The pre-industrial revolution investments made in a Baroque opera houses was shown in a recent study to continue to be a factor in attracting top talent to European cities.

Will the relatively unified United States, European Union, China and India suffer relatively to places like Africa, Arabia, Southeast Asia and Latin America in terms of cultural innovation in the century to come for similar reasons?

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