Covers the origins of opera in Florence, Venice, Paris, Hamburg, and London, chronicling sociopolitical factors, the influence of the popular arts, and the great singers.

Demented--opera slang for an insanely great performance--is Ethan Mordden's provocative inside look at opera's great women singers, from Beverly Sills to Birgit Nilsson to Leontyne Price.

Mordden continues his history of the Broadway musical with a look at the decade that brought us some of the greatest hits of our time, such as Chorus Line and Annie, as well as the greatest musicals in the ouevre of Stephen Sondheim.

Looks at each musical created by the famous team, and discusses cast, music, theme, and critical reception.

"The true Broadway musical from the days of Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Merman, Preston, Channing, Fosse, and Robbins was finally dead. Unfortunately, the burial has not yet taken place. In The Happiest Corpse I've Ever Seen, Ethan Mordden takes the reader to the Broadway musical's wake and is unsparing in his acerbic and witty look at the condition of the corpse."--Jacket.

From Theda Bara to Mary Pickford to Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep, women stars have dominated films and thereby the popular imagination of America. By the sheer force of their presence or talent, they helped create American film - as well as our enduring images of womanhood. With wit, intelligence, and panache, Ethan Mordden follows the history of the female movie star from the days before there was a Hollywood up to the present: the images they projected...