Preface
Introduction: Flash!--Splash
Jake Johnson
Part One: The Road to Vegas
1 On the Edge of the Desert
Robert Fink
2 Reimagining the Popular on the Vegas Circuit: Helen Traubel, Diva Populism, and the Labor of Publicity
Michael M. Reinhard
3 It Was Better When the Mob Ran the Town
Janis McKay
Part Two: Overheard
4 Music as Misdirection
Jason Leddington
5 Presence, Absence, and Live Virtuality: Soundscapes in Cirque du Soleil on the Las Vegas Strip
Lynda Paul
6 Pura Alegria: Young Adult Musicians Learning Mariachi in Schools and Participating in the Las Vegas Mariachi Scene
Cassaundra Rodriguez and Celine Ayala
Part Three: Second Chances
7 The Master and the Mob: NoËl Coward’s Musical Identity in the Golden Age of Las Vegas
Arianne Johnson Quinn
8 Elvis in Vegas: The King of Rock ’n’ Roll and the City of Second Chances
Brian F. Wright
9 Celine Dion and Cher’s Vegas Residencies: The Envoiced and Embodied Spectacle of Feminine Aging on the Vegas Stage
Jessica A. Holmes and Michael Kinney
Part Four: Virtuoso Fantastique
10 Viva Viagra: Vegas, Elvis, and “A Little Blue Pill”
James Deaville and Kirstin Bews
11 Shall We Go for It? The Hermeneutics of Celine Dion’s Las Vegas Show
Sam Murray
12 Liberace’s Surfaces: Democratic Virtuosity, American Fantasies, and Vegas Pianism
Pheaross Graham
Part Five: Making Book
13 Comedy Tonight: Broadway Musicals on the Las Vegas Strip
Arreanna Rostosky
14 “Trouble Is, We Don’t Make the Rules”: The Las Vegas Years of Jazz and Classical Violinist Ginger Smock
Laura Risk
15 “For Adult Audiences Only”: A History of LGBTQ Performers on the Las Vegas Stage
Louis Niebur
Part Six: Leaving Vegas
16 The Real Deal: Impersonation and the American Dream in Branson and Vegas
Joanna Dee Das and Maddie House-Tuck
17 Salaciously Family Friendly: The Unlikely Porousness of Sin City and the American Boob Tube
Kelly Kessler
18 Representation and Value in Michael Daugherty’s Las Vegas Works
Laura Dallman
19 Specters of Mine: Musicological Research in the Desert of the Opera
Carlo Lanfossi
Contributors
Index
