{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in History","slug":"new-books-in-history-160748","podcast_index_feed_id":160748,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT3360275696","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/politics-society/history/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/5259aaca-f298-11e8-9c09-2ffd527922e7/image/6997b2fe61dc73a9d4ffd37b9e862b62.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":500,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history","last_synced_at":"2026-07-13T16:19:40.703970+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-history-160748"},"episode":{"title":"James O'Leary, \"The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America\" (Oxford UP, 2025)","slug":"james-o-leary-the-middlebrow-musical-between-broadway-and-opera-in-1940s-america-oxford-up-2025","published_at":"2026-06-19T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-history-160748/james-o-leary-the-middlebrow-musical-between-broadway-and-opera-in-1940s-america-oxford-up-2025","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-history-160748","url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chtbl.com/track/1C3AGD/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK3627188505.mp3","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chtbl.com/track/1C3AGD/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK3627188505.mp3","summary":"The premiere of Oklahoma! in 1943 is commonly called a “turning point” in the history of the Broadway musical. Often characterized as the first integrated musical―meaning that the songs and other elements of the show are integrated into the story―James O’Leary offers a different interpretation of Oklahoma! and other musicals at the beginning of Broadway’s Golden Age in The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America (Oxford University Press, 2025). Contextualizing his discussion within debates among US critics, O’Leary argues that the negotiation between operatic and popular music, and between frothy comedy and more serious themes mark the musicals he analyzes as examples of the middlebrow. Through detailed archival work, O’Leary uncovers the crucial critical networks that originally theorized a middlebrow approach to culture, beginning in the literary circles of Van Wyck Brooks and Archibald MacLeish, and radiating outward to major theater and music critics including Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes. These writers believed American culture had splintered into factions, which in turn divided American audiences: highbrow art, which they regarded as obscure and elitist; folk art, which they found provincial and alienating; and popular culture, which they considered merely commercial. Blending these kinds of art, they argued, could draw together a fractured society into mutual understanding (if not necessarily agreement) by situating the most sophisticated ideas within longstanding expressive traditions, accessible to all. O’Leary finds in Oklahoma!, Beggar’s Holiday, and Street Scene a new kind of musical comedy that embraced American politics and weighty stories in ways not seen before 1943. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic…","meta_description":"The premiere of Oklahoma! in 1943 is commonly called a “turning point” in the history of the Broadway musical. Often characterized as the first integrated…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4100,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-history-160748/episodes/james-o-leary-the-middlebrow-musical-between-broadway-and-opera-in-1940s-america-oxford-up-2025/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-history-160748/james-o-leary-the-middlebrow-musical-between-broadway-and-opera-in-1940s-america-oxford-up-2025.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}