The opera-goer's indispensable guide.

About to see Rossini's William Tell, Menotti's The Consul, Gluck's Alceste, John Adams's Nixon in China? The stories of these operas and 121 others are told, clearly and concisely, in this companion volume to the highly successful Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas. John Freeman untangles and summarizes the often complicated plots and, in addition, provides an informative biographical sketch of each composer, premiere dates for the works, lists of characters, and other useful information.

The operas span more than three and one-half centuries—from Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (1640) to Philip Glass's The Voyage (1992)—and are set in venues as diverse as the legendary palace of Time (Lully's Atys) and 1960s Harlem (Anthony Davis's X). A most valuable resource, the book is also great fun just to read.

"Opera stories make wonderful reading, even when you're not boning up for a performance. They may stretch credulity . . . or wreak havoc with historical fact, . . . or be complicated enough to require several readings to determine who's on first at any given time (try Tancredi). But the stories are rarely dull."—from the foreword by Beverly Sills

• Published jointly by the Metropolitan Opera Guild and Norton.