Background
John Dizikes was born on November 8, 1932 in the United States.
("I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed i...)
"I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed is music―this suits me."―Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" America has had a love affair with opera in all its forms since it was first performed here in colonial times. This book―the first comprehensive cultural and social history of musical theater in the United States―includes vignettes of productions, personalities, audiences, and theaters throughout the country from 1735 to the present day. John Dizikes tells how opera, steeped in European aristocratic tradition, was transplanted into the democratic cultural environment of America. With a wealth of colorful detail, he describes how operas were performed and received in small towns and in big cities, and he brings to life little-known people involved with opera as well as famous ones such as Oscar Hammerstein, Jenny Lind, Gustav Mahler, Enrico Caruso, Milton Cross, Maria Callas, and Leonard Bernstein. He tells us about the often overlooked African American contribution to operatic history, from nineteenth-century minstrel shows to the work of Scott Joplin and Marian Anderson, and he discusses operetta and Broadway musicals, recognized everywhere in the world as one of the triumphs of American twentieth-century art. Dizikes considers the increasingly diverse operatic audiences of the twentieth century, shaped by records, radio, and television, and he describes the places where opera now flourishes―not only New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, but also St. Louis, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Santa Fe, Seattle, and elsewhere. Generously illustrated and engagingly written, the book is a fitting tribute to its subject―as grand and entertaining as opera itself. "I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed is music―this suits me."―Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" America has had a love affair with opera in all its forms since it was first performed here in colonial times. This book―the first comprehensive cultural and social history of musical theater in the United States―includes vignettes of productions, personalities, audiences, and theaters throughout the country from 1735 to the present day. John Dizikes tells how opera, steeped in European aristocratic tradition, was transplanted into the democratic cultural environment of America. With a wealth of colorful detail, he describes how operas were performed and received in small towns and in big cities, and he brings to life little-known people involved with opera as well as famous ones such as Oscar Hammerstein, Jenny Lind, Gustav Mahler, Enrico Caruso, Milton Cross, Maria Callas, and Leonard Bernstein. He tells us about the often overlooked African American contribution to operatic history, from nineteenth-century minstrel shows to the work of Scott Joplin and Marian Anderson, and he discusses operetta and Broadway musicals, recognized everywhere in the world as one of the triumphs of American twentieth-century art. Dizikes considers the increasingly diverse operatic audiences of the twentieth century, shaped by records, radio, and television, and he describes the places where opera now flourishes―not only New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, but also St. Louis, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Santa Fe, Seattle, and elsewhere. Generously illustrated and engagingly written, the book is a fitting tribute to its subject―as grand and entertaining as opera itself.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300061013/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(In the 1890s, feisty Tod Sloan (1874–1933) abandoned the ...)
In the 1890s, feisty Tod Sloan (1874–1933) abandoned the centuries-old jockey tradition of riding in a straight sitting position and instead crouched low on the neck of his horse. The result was not only a string of victories for young Sloan but also a revolution in horse racing. In this entertaining book, award-winning author John Dizikes recounts the remarkable story of the Indiana boy who rose from obscurity to become the most famous jockey in the United States and Great Britain at the turn of the century. Dizikes evokes the turbulent, colorful world of horse racing and gambling in which Tod Sloan rocketed to celebrity―and from which he was just as dramatically ejected. Sloan’s innovative riding style helped to transform horse racing into the first nationally popular spectator sport, drawing in huge crowds and vast amounts of betting money. But Sloan’s career was crushingly ended by those who resented and envied him. A dandy, a big spender, a man whose company women loved, Sloan related to horses in an almost magical way, yet foundered in his dealings with people. This book is the biography of a diminutive man who lived in large style, and lives on in George M. Cohan’s musical Little Johnny Jones and Ernest Hemingway’s short story “My Old Man.” The book is also much more―a fascinating cultural history that illuminates the history of horse racing and betting, the democratization of sport, changing conceptions of masculinity, the hypocrisy of Victorian morality, the lionizing and demonizing of celebrities, and a variety of other inviting topics. In the 1890s, feisty Tod Sloan (1874–1933) abandoned the centuries-old jockey tradition of riding in a straight sitting position and instead crouched low on the neck of his horse. The result was not only a string of victories for young Sloan but also a revolution in horse racing. In this entertaining book, award-winning author John Dizikes recounts the remarkable story of the Indiana boy who rose from obscurity to become the most famous jockey in the United States and Great Britain at the turn of the century. Dizikes evokes the turbulent, colorful world of horse racing and gambling in which Tod Sloan rocketed to celebrity―and from which he was just as dramatically ejected. Sloan’s innovative riding style helped to transform horse racing into the first nationally popular spectator sport, drawing in huge crowds and vast amounts of betting money. But Sloan’s career was crushingly ended by those who resented and envied him. A dandy, a big spender, a man whose company women loved, Sloan related to horses in an almost magical way, yet foundered in his dealings with people. This book is the biography of a diminutive man who lived in large style, and lives on in George M. Cohan’s musical Little Johnny Jones and Ernest Hemingway’s short story “My Old Man.” The book is also much more―a fascinating cultural history that illuminates the history of horse racing and betting, the democratization of sport, changing conceptions of masculinity, the hypocrisy of Victorian morality, the lionizing and demonizing of celebrities, and a variety of other inviting topics. In the 1890s, feisty Tod Sloan (1874–1933) abandoned the centuries-old jockey tradition of riding in a straight sitting position and instead crouched low on the neck of his horse. The result was not only a string of victories for young Sloan but also a revolution in horse racing. In this entertaining book, award-winning author John Dizikes recounts the remarkable story of the Indiana boy who rose from obscurity to become the most famous jockey in the United States and Great Britain at the turn of the century. Dizikes evokes the turbulent, colorful world of horse racing and gambling in which Tod Sloan rocketed to celebrity―and from which he was just as dramatically ejected. Sloan’s innovative riding style helped to transform horse racing into the first nationally popular spectator sport, drawing in huge crowds and vast amounts of betting money. But Sloan’s career was crushingly ended by those who resented and envied him. A dandy, a big spender, a man whose company women loved, Sloan related to horses in an almost magical way, yet foundered in his dealings with people. This book is the biography of a diminutive man who lived in large style, and lives on in George M. Cohan’s musical Little Johnny Jones and Ernest Hemingway’s short story “My Old Man.” The book is also much more―a fascinating cultural history that illuminates the history of horse racing and betting, the democratization of sport, changing conceptions of masculinity, the hypocrisy of Victorian morality, the lionizing and demonizing of celebrities, and a variety of other inviting topics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300083343/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(The gradual transformation of the British aristocratic sp...)
The gradual transformation of the British aristocratic sporting tradition into a popular one in America is a principal theme of Sportsmen and Gamesmen. John Dizikes locates the distinction between sportsmen and gamesmen in different attitudes toward rules. Beginning with Andrew Jackson, the personification of American democracy, for whom the traditional code of conduct was a vital part of the sporting spirit, he finds a diversity of views in the next generation of American sportsmen, some accepting, other modifying or rejecting, the old sporting code, which came, in the changing conditions and values of nineteenth-century American life, to seem irrelevant, almost un-American. These sporting portraits vividly depict the process of creating a distinctive American sporting culture. The gradual transformation of the British aristocratic sporting tradition into a popular one in America is a principal theme of Sportsmen and Gamesmen. John Dizikes locates the distinction between sportsmen and gamesmen in different attitudes toward rules. Beginning with Andrew Jackson, the personification of American democracy, for whom the traditional code of conduct was a vital part of the sporting spirit, he finds a diversity of views in the next generation of American sportsmen, some accepting, other modifying or rejecting, the old sporting code, which came, in the changing conditions and values of nineteenth-century American life, to seem irrelevant, almost un-American. These sporting portraits vividly depict the process of creating a distinctive American sporting culture. The gradual transformation of the British aristocratic sporting tradition into a popular one in America is a principal theme of Sportsmen and Gamesmen. John Dizikes locates the distinction between sportsmen and gamesmen in different attitudes toward rules. Beginning with Andrew Jackson, the personification of American democracy, for whom the traditional code of conduct was a vital part of the sporting spirit, he finds a diversity of views in the next generation of American sportsmen, some accepting, other modifying or rejecting, the old sporting code, which came, in the changing conditions and values of nineteenth-century American life, to seem irrelevant, almost un-American. These sporting portraits vividly depict the process of creating a distinctive American sporting culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826214479/?tag=2022091-20
2002
John Dizikes was born on November 8, 1932 in the United States.
Dizikes graduated from Harvard University in 1964.
Dizikes served as Cowell College provost. He also worked as a professor of history at University of California, Santa Cruz, California, United States.
In 2000 he wrote a biography of Hall of Fame jockey Tod Sloan.
(In the 1890s, feisty Tod Sloan (1874–1933) abandoned the ...)
2000(The gradual transformation of the British aristocratic sp...)
2002("I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed i...)
1995Dizikes has an interest in thoroughbred horse racing.