Professor of history and opera expert Margarita López Cano has just brought out a fascinating new book, Ópera y vida cotidiana en la Puebla Imperial ("Opera and Daily Life in Imperial Puebla"), co-published by CONACULTA and the Secretary of Culture of the State of Puebla, as part of the "Colección Bicentenario 2010." Puebla is that Mexican city made famous by the Cinco de Mayo, the temporary but devastatingly defeat of the invading French Imperial Army in 1862. One of Mexico's most splendid Spanish colonial cities, Puebla is strategically situated on the route inland from Veracruz; no power could rule from Mexico City without first controlling Puebla. The French did retake Puebla a year later, however, and then Mexico City; thus, only a year later than planned, by the spring of 1864, having been crowned Emperor and Empress of Mexico in Trieste, Maximilian and Carlota were en route.
The Second Empire has rich and staggeringly diverse sound track . . . CONTINUE READING over at my other blog, Maximilian ~ Carlota: a blog for researchers, both armchair, and serious, of the Second Empire or "French Intervention."
