Consider the fact that, say, at the time when Verdi was rabidly popular, late 19th century, there was no iTunes, no TV, no CDs, cassettes, or vinyl records, and no music radio. Live performances ruled supreme, among all classes. It's true that opera was a higher-brow entertainment than going to dances, but still a ton of people atteneded opera houses, it was normal, even for not rich. Very certainly not a tiny minority; it was a bit like movies prior to TV.
Speaking of Verdi, he postponed rehearsals of the famous "Donna e mobile" aria until the day before premiere, to keep it a secret, because he predicted (correctly) that it was going to be an instant hit. On release, it basically became a pop song, performed all over the place (recording did not exist, remember). This may give an idea what a hit could look / sound like at the time. BTW it has most features of a modern hit song: a clear rhythm, a simple but catchy and recognizable melody, somehow playful words about the nature of romantic relationships.
> Consider the fact that, say, at the time when Verdi was rabidly popular, late 19th century, there was no iTunes, no TV, no CDs, cassettes, or vinyl records, and no music radio.
Notably though, there was sheet music as a mass-market form of music, so we can tell what was popular - and "opera tunes" definitely made the list, together with theme-and-variations sets based on opera tunes, medleys of opera tunes, parodies based on the tunes, arrangements for countless instruments etc.
Yeah I've considered all that but still you were making a concrete historical claim about a specific time and place and I was wondering if it's true. I still am.
Of course live music was how people accessed music, and generally for this time in most parts of europe we have a strongly attested art music tradition enjoyed by the aristocratic minority and a separate, vastly more popular yet barely attested folk music tradition associated with the lower class rural majority.
The elite wrote about the things that interested them, and their writings make up the vast majority of primary documents from the era. We have to be careful not to accidentally consume their biases along with their information.
Speaking of Verdi, he postponed rehearsals of the famous "Donna e mobile" aria until the day before premiere, to keep it a secret, because he predicted (correctly) that it was going to be an instant hit. On release, it basically became a pop song, performed all over the place (recording did not exist, remember). This may give an idea what a hit could look / sound like at the time. BTW it has most features of a modern hit song: a clear rhythm, a simple but catchy and recognizable melody, somehow playful words about the nature of romantic relationships.