A fancy name for someone who puts on operas, concerts, or other public entertainment.
Of the Coney Island dance hall impresarios of the 19th century: “How seriously all these men out in front of the dens take their vocations. They regard people with a voracious air, as if they contemplated any moment making a rush and a grab and mercilessly compelling a great expenditure. This scant and feeble crowd must madden them. When I first came to this part of the town I was astonished and delighted, for it was the nearest approach to a den of wolves that I had encountered since leaving the West.”
Stephen Crane, Other Writings About New York, “Coney Island’s Failing Days” (1894-6).
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