San Antonio College Library

'One of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit of man can invent,' wrote the diarist John Evelyn after his visit to the opera in Venice in 1645--just eight years after the world's first commercial opera house had opened in that city. Today few people would wholly dissent from Evelyn's view of opera. Its masterpieces rank among the supreme achievements of both music and drama. Yet a fine operatic performance also generates an indefinable...

There are few one-volume histories of opera available, and none includes the up-to-date information contained here. Nine leading authorities provide insightful chapters on periods in opera history, from a thorough account of opera in the 17th century through the works of present-day composers such as Philip Glass and John Adams. Because it is intended for the general reader, this work has no musical examples or footnotes. The chapters are not organized...

Over 4,500 entries on individual composers; operatic works; principal operatic roles; well-known arias, choruses, scenes, and interludes; sources of ideas for operas; details of librettists and their sources; singers, conductors, producers, directors, designers, and entrepreneurs; histories of opera-houses, companies, institutions, and festivals; history of opera in individual countries; those whose thought influenced opera; and specialized terms....

"When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field. Now, more than five decades later, this thoroughly revised and expanded fourth edition informs and entertains opera lovers just as its predecessors have." "The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic...