Chapter 1: Periwigs in Prague: The Opera Project We Never Did

In this chapter the authors describe an ethnographic project that the authors were never able to undertake. It was concerned with the use of opera (such as those of Mozart) in the construction of cultural heritage in a number of European cities, including Prague and Vienna. The authors would also have undertaken fieldwork to study the local use of music and opera as tourist attractions. The authors would have studied operatic tourism as an example of secular, cultural pilgrimage. It would, therefore, have been a contribution to the sociology of culture, heritage and tourism.