Parodies de dandies : travestissement et transgression des genres au music-hall by Catherine Rovera

“…Why did some Victorian and Edwardian music-hall acts, namely the swell song and male impersonations, choose the dandy, of all cultural icons, to debunk it as a symbol of decadence, and what was the part played by female artists in this exposure ? …”
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Velours rouge et piquets de grève : la grève du music-hall à Londres en 1907 by John Mullen

“…Debate continues about the relationship of music hall culture to the working class. Some emphasize the working class themes of the songs, and the working class origins of the stars. …”
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Sociétés chorales et Renaissance de la musique anglaise, 1840-1910 by Gilles Couderc

“…Those societies were fostered so as to tame, civilise and educate the potentially unruly new unskilled labour force who manned “the dark Satanic mills” of the expanding northern industrial cities and to lead them away from drink or the profanities of the nascent music-halls. Their favourite repertoire was the English oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn, a genre which flourished all century long in the wake of the great religious awakening of the late eighteenth century and provided English and foreign composers with work in an opera-shy kingdom. …”
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