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...

This is intended as an introduction to opera. One highlight is "100 operas to enjoy." These are the operas readers are most likely to encounter in performance. Technical terms are defined in an "operatic glossary."

This book is about the drama that takes place within the world of opera and provides an insight into how opera has evolved and its functions. The Creators describes some of the ways that composers use the language of music, and liaise with their librettists. The Re-Creators explains the functions of conductors, producers, designers, repetiteurs, the chorus and orchestra, singers, the Fach system (by which voice types are categorized), understudies,...

Tracing the rise of modern music drama from its nineteenth century Wagnerian peak, the author shows how modern opera has evolved along two revolutionary lines of development: first, the increasing importance of the poetry in relation to the music; and second, the blending of the traditional themes of classical opera with the contemporary emergence of surrealism and vernacular comedy. As the author writes, 'The art of modern opera is a syzygy of the...

In this thoughtful study, historian and opera lover Robinson relates music to the history of ideas by analyzing several major operas: The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, Les Troyens, Don Carlo, Die Meistersinger, and Der Rosenkavalier. He also considers two Schubert song cycles. Robinson's thesis is that composers' attitudes toward society, philosophy, and politics have influenced the musical/dramatic structure of many operas.