Each entry in this New Grove series of composers and their operas is based on articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, that feature information on the lives of individual composers, their works, their librettists and interpreters, and the places where they performed. These unique books compile the meticulously researched articles into organized narratives, designed to make finding information as easy as possible without sacrificing readability. Each volume is completely up-to-date, and includes a suggested listening guide and an eight-page glossy insert containing relevant illustrations. Each volume is a must-own for lovers of opera and classical music.
Giuseppe Verdi is the most famous Italian composer of opera. While he was sometimes criticized for writing music considered too "simple," his works have endured, and are still performed throughout the world today. This concise volume is a handy guide to the Verdi's life and operas, revising the original New Grove articles and adding a new introduction, a new section on modern Verdi productions, and an updated bibliography.

First published in 1897, this was among the earliest works about Wagner and his works to come from outside Bayreuth and presented careful and probing analyses of both the poems and the music, touching for the first time on the essential themes and questions of Wagner's life and work, the use of the leit-motif and the universe of his creative work. Contains all of the original illustrations. A work explaining and interpreting Wagner and his music, which is extremely valuable for the French point of view which it presents. This title is cited and recommended by Books for College Libraries and the Catalogue of the Lamont Library, Harvard College.

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This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Chicago's love affair with opera began early, in 1850, when the frontier town welcomed its first traveling opera singers. A full house applauded the opening performance, but during a repeat performance the next day, the theater burned to the ground. Nonetheless, Chicago had been bitten by the opera bug, and it has never lost its enthusiasm for the art. More than sixty years-and many visiting opera companies-would pass before the city established an opera company of its own. Robert Marsh recounts the trials and triumphs of the entrepreneurs and the colorful international artists who brought opera to Chicago and staged it in a number of different theaters. In the first half of the twentieth century, seven opera companies were started in Chicago-and failed. Finally, in 1954, three friends launched the company that became Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the city gained a company that not only thrived but earned recognition as one of the nation's great cultural institutions. This book also details the history and fortunes of the Chicago Opera Theater from its inception in 1974 to the present. Singers, musicians, enterprising impresarios, richly decorated opera houses, and performances that held audiences spellbound all figure into Marsh's lively account of opera in Chicago. The story also provides an overview of changes in the operatic repertoire, audience development, and approaches to production as opera grew from a "stand-and-sing" event to its full flowering as enriching musical drama. Enlivened with nearly a hundred illustrations, 150 Years of Opera in Chicago embraces its subject enthusiastically. This broad and engaging overview is supplemented with a list of professional opera performances in Chicago, from 1850 to 2005.

This tremendous reference is in dictionary style for the easy reference and use by researchers, scholars, and any reader interested in the opera. It is an excellent source for looking up anything from specific data on a particular opera to which aria is connected with which opera. This volume is generously cross-referenced and should prove invaluable in answering many questions on the opera.

Description And Interpretation Of The Words And Music Of The Most Celebrated Operas.

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Because, replied Loki, "the gold can be made into a magic ring; if the one who would make the ring will forever give up all love, the magic ring will make its owner master of the whole wide world. Alberich declared that love was nothing to him if he could have all the gold he wanted."

Bri. No, give me a husband that knows where his limbs are, though he want the use of them--and if he should take you with him--to sleep in a baggage cart, and stroll about the camp like a gipsey, with a knapsack and two children at your back--then by way of entertainment in the evening, to make a party with the Serjeants wife, to drink bohea tea, and play at all fours on a drumhead, 'tis a precious life to be sure.

Trapes. There it is now! Whoever heard a man of fortune in England talk of the necessaries of life? If the necessaries of life would have satisfy'd such a poor body as me, to be sure I had never come to mend my fortune to the Plantations. Whether we can afford it or no, we must have superfluities. We never stint our Expence to our own fortunes, but are miserable, if we do not live up to the profuseness of our neighbours.

1898. With illustrations and diagrams. From the Preface: In writing the thousand and first book on Richard Wagner and his work, I do not pretend to accomplish anything better than has yet been done. My aim has been something quite different, -a real practical guide to Bayreuth for the French which will answer the needs and satisfy the curiosity of those of our nation who have not yet taken that little journey, which is so easy and attractive. I have also desired to indicate what state of mind it should be undertaken and what seductive preliminary studies are necessary to the complete enjoyment of the trip; finally, it has been my desire to present the Wagnerian style in its own proper light, by dissipating the clouds with which it has been enveloped by certain of its commentators, who, far from smoothing the way, have made it bristle with difficulties. This is the sole criticism I will allow myself: they write for Wagnerians, not for neophytes.

1882. This volume contains The Rhine-Gold (Das Rheingold), the prelude to Wagner's trilogy: The Nibelung's Ring. Acknowledged as the master of German opera, and one of the most progressive composers in history, his monumental cycle of four musical dramas, collectively titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs) and comprised of Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Die Gotterdammerung, took 22 years to complete, and stands as one of the most remarkable and influential achievements in Western music.

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS: "If you are for opera, this book is for you."--"New York Times Book Review"The most influential recent book on opera criticism. . . in the English-speaking world"--"New Grove Dictionary of Opera"Affords the serious reader and listener an absorbing encounter with a sensitive and superbly trained intelligence in the act of thinking about music and music criticism. . . . We come away remembering the sound of Kerman's prose voice, mellifluous, elegant, eminently civilized, beneath its cool control a ground bass of urgent feeling."--"San Francisco Chronicle Book Review"The author's clarity and pungency...make for enjoyable, challenging reading. It is a collection that can tease the person who is primarily interested in opera into wanting to explore the song literature of the English Renaissance or to listen more knowledgeably to Mozart's piano concertos and Beethoven's symphonies."--William Ashbrook, "Opera Quarterly ""Kerman's musicological activity is technical without neglecting the importance of text, cultural context, meaning, expression, and value, and is likely to appeal to educated lay people.... Kerman's scholarship is careful and sensitive, and often subtle and witty. Yet this subtle scholarship has evoked strong and widespread reaction and provided significant leadership within musicology and beyond."--Renee Cox Lorraine, "Notes ""Lucid, lively.... Many aspects of his work can provide inspiration."--Oliver Neighbour, "Music and Letters"

Film technology developments in the early 20th century opened up a new world of possibilities for the motion picture industry, and opera, relying as it did on the melodramatic storyline and grand pantomime acting, was an ideal subject for early silent film. Even deprived of their principal glory-their voices-opera singers were among the first prominent screen stars. This book examines the relationship between the established operatic stars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the newly developing motion picture industry. It concentrates primarily on developments between 1895 and 1926, from the invention of the commercially exploitable motion picture to the coming of viable sound on film. Early chapters discuss the changing role of the opera star prior to and during the development of film as a popular commercial medium, and explore the technological innovations that eventually enabled opera to move out of the strict confines of the opera house and to be viewed by a global audience. Later chapters expose the fragile relationship between art and the entertainment industry in the early decades of the motion picture, and show how the opera helped establish a balance between film as a new art form and its commercial exploitation. Also discussed is the extent to which the inclusion of opera in early motion pictures contributed to the broader democratization of art. The book concludes with four detailed case studies that examine the experiences of operatic performers who made the transition to the silent screen and who made a notable impact on the early movie industry. An extensive filmography is included to provide the reader with full details of films cited and archival locations of surviving materials.

A complete vocal score of Somtow Sucharitkul's 2003 horror opera, "Mae Naak," edited and with a piano reduction by Trisdee na Patalung. The Nation called this opera "a truly great work" with its exotic colors and ironic cross-breeding of Thai folk music with the tropes of horror film music. As noted for its grand guignol as its sweeping lyricism, "Mae Naak" has been garnering rave reviews since its Bangkok Opera debut with Nancy Yuen in the title role.