This is the first and only global social history the world's most romantic, flamboyant, glamorous and politically influential art-form: Opera. Opera, the most complex of all the performance arts, inspires great passions. From its beginnings in the Renaissance cities of northern Italy it has spread across Europe, America and beyond, becoming a global business in the digital age. This book unfolds the story of opera in the social contexts in which it developed - through history and around the world. The charm and chaos of Mozart's Vienna, Frederick the Great's Berlin, the seductions of fin de siecle Paris, the rough and tumble of the Australian outback, where an opera house was a sign of civilization, provide colorful backdrops to the always dramatic, sometimes tragic, on occasion hilarious stories that make up this fascinating story.