Masquerades in London [ Dance, Music & Songs / Social interaction ]
… centres of the metropolis, such as the Haymarket Theatre, Vauxhall Gardens or Ranelagh Gardens. The practice was endowed with a democratic potential realized through a carnivalesque suspension of social hierarchies. At the same time, the … variants were not always clear cut. However, the level of masquerade’s democratization in the period is questionable, with Meghan Kobza recently arguing against the heterotopic, transgressive and democratized image of the masquerade … opera singer, who had settled in London in 1759. Cornelys’s assemblies were yet more restrictive in terms of admission, with considerably higher attendance costs (Kobza 170): the closed space of her house at Soho square supported her agenda …
Assemblies | Masquerade
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