Paradise Lost nor Regained: Social Composition of Theatre Audiences in the Long Nineteenth Century

Journal of Social History, Winter, 2004

Abstract: Henk Gras, Harry Van Vliet, "Paradise Lost nor Regained: Social Composition of Theatre Audiences in the Long Nineteenth Century"

The received knowledge about theatre audiences from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century is a story of Paradise Lost and Regained: a late eighteenth century elite audience favored neo-classical drama. Due to the Revolution, lower middle classes and even laborers entered the theatre and with them came melodrama. The elite fled to opera. Around 1870 the bourgeois elite began to reconquer the theatre: Paradise was regained. To test this view, we analyzed, by way of prosopgraphy, the social background of the subscribers for drama and opera in Rotterdam, 1773-1912 (14,000 person files). The result of this analysis rejects the dominant narrative: although there is a difference in social standing between drama and opera subscribers, the difference is relative. On the whole, the subscribing audience was trade-based, wealthy, relatively tolerant in religious beliefs, powerful (social and political functions), culturally and socially active (sociability), well educated, and liberal. The participation of women in the audience increased in the course of the century. The social backgrounds of these of these subscribers (father and grandfather generations) show a surprising stability: overall, these generations had the same characteristics. Instead of heroic struggles, the theatre in this period is better characterized as a prison of longue duree.