Opera Books

Book SynopsisHis exceptional good looks made him a matinee idol and Franco Corelli ä the Prince of Tenors ä was dubbed Mr. Soldout for 20 consecutive years. In 1958 just seven years after beginning his career he was already the highest-paid tenor in Italy. Following his Met debut in 1961 he was celebrated as the greatest tenor in the world a position that he retained until his departure from the Met in 1975.ÞHis charismatic performances in such operas as ÊLa VestaleÊ and ÊFedoraÊ (both in collaboration with Maria Callas) coupled with a formidable mystique as well as a number of notorious and colorful incidents including his real-life sword fight with Boris Christoff in Rome the Callas walkout there the beating up of a spectator in Naples and the alleged biting of Birgit Nilsson on a Boston tour of ÊTurandotÊ created a mania for Corelli.ÞNearly a decade in the making this definitive biography is based on the author's extensive research of theater archives and interviews with the opera star's numerous friends family members colleagues (Nilsson Pavarotti and many others) as well as the management of some of the world's leading opera houses.

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Book SynopsisToday Mozart's exquisite ÊLe Nozze di FigaroÊ delights and moves audiences everywhere long after its 1786 birth into tumultuous times. The original Beaumarchais play raised a firestorm in France then on the brink of revolution with its dangerous commentary on class relations. However Lorenzo Da Ponte carefully omitted anything political from his opera libretto; what remained when joined with Mozart's sublime and penetrating music was a witty yet profound tale of infatuation heartache scheming and tenderness where complex emotions are laid bare and everyone regardless of class is equally vulnerable to the powers of love.ÞFigaro continues the story of ÊThe Barber of SevilleÊ several years later in a single day of madness. Count Almaviva's love Rosina is now his long-suffering countess and the barber Figaro now the count's valet is about to marry Susanna the countess's maid. But the couple-to-be must first deal with two obstacles: a demand that Figaro pay his debt to an older woman or marry her instead and the count's determination to bed Susanna on her wedding night.ÞSuspicions fly plots are hatched narrow escapes abound and connivers receive their due. Love and forgiveness finally bring order to the craziness and a day filled with torment and worry ends in joy.

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Book SynopsisA riveting story of fatal attraction between a beguiling strong-willed gypsy and a na¯ve but passionate soldier who falls under her spell Georges Bizet's ÊCarmenÊ pulses with seduction obsession and deadly betrayal. It was reviled at its Paris premiere where its realism and perceived amorality proved shocking but it became one of the most popular and highly regarded operas of all time. Arguably the greatest musical product of France's enduring fascination with Spain Carmen features many numbers that are now almost universally familiar including the seductive Habanera and the boastful but infectious Toreador Song.ÞDon Jos© is an idealistic young corporal in 1820s Seville when he encounters the gypsy Carmen who is irresistible to all men ä seemingly except Jos© who loves the innocent country girl Mica«la. But soon enough Carmen works her wiles on him to escape imprisonment and a later twist of ever-looming fate forces him to completely abandon the world he knows and follow Carmen into a life of crime. When the bullfighter Escamillo wins Carmen's affections Don Jos©'s explosive jealousy clashes with Carmen's resolve to remain true to herself leading to one of opera's fiercest confrontations and most unforgettable conclusions.

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Book SynopsisThe Black Dog Opera Library is the best, easiest and most informative and budget-friendly way to enjoy four of the greatest operas of all time. Finally available again, and packaged with gorgeous new covers, each book in the library includes the complete opera on 2 CDs, featuring world-class performances and orchestras; the complete libretto, plus its English translation; an exciting history of the opera; a biography of the composer; a synopsis of the story, broken down by act and scene; and dozens of photographs and drawings depicting performances, singers, sets, costumes, and more.La Traviata featuring Beverly Sills, Nicolai Gedda, and Rolando Panerai, with Aldo Ceccato conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.Also available:La Boh?me featuring Nicolai Gedda and Mirella Freni, with Thomas Schippers conducting the Orchestro e Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma; The Marriage of Figaro featuring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heather Harper, Judith Blegen, Geraint Evans, Teresa Berganza, and Birgit Finnil?, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the English Chamber Orchestra. Carmen featuring Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers, Mirella Freni, and Kostas Paskalis, with Rafael Fru?beck de Burgos conducting the Orchestra of the Th??tre National de l'Op?ra.Listen. Enjoy. Learn.

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Book SynopsisThe Black Dog Opera Library is the best, easiest and most informative and budget-friendly way to enjoy four of the greatest operas of all time. Finally available again, and packaged with gorgeous new covers, each book in the library includes the complete opera on 2 CDs, featuring world-class performances and orchestras; the complete libretto, plus its English translation; an exciting history of the opera; a biography of the composer; a synopsis of the story, broken down by act and scene; and dozens of photographs and drawings depicting performances, singers, sets, costumes, and more.Carmen features Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers, Mirella Freni, and Kostas Paskalis, with Rafael Fru?beck de Burgos conducting the Orchestra of the Th??tre National de l'Op?ra.?Also available:La Boh?me featuring Nicolai Gedda and Mirella Freni, with Thomas Schippers conducting the Orchestro e Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma; La Traviata featuring Beverly Sills, Nicolai Gedda, and Rolando Panerai, with Aldo Ceccato conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; The Marriage of Figaro featuring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heather Harper, Judith Blegen, Geraint Evans, Teresa Berganza, and Birgit Finnil?, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the English Chamber Orchestra.Listen. Enjoy. Learn.

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Book SynopsisThe Black Dog Opera Library is the best, easiest and most informative and budget-friendly way to enjoy four of the greatest operas of all time. Finally available again, and packaged with gorgeous new covers, each book in the library includes the complete opera on 2 CDs, featuring world-class performances and orchestras; the complete libretto, plus its English translation; an exciting history of the opera; a biography of the composer; a synopsis of the story, broken down by act and scene; and dozens of photographs and drawings depicting performances, singers, sets, costumes, and more.La Boh?me features Nicolai Gedda and Mirella Freni, with Thomas Schippers conducting the Orchestro e Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma.Also available:Carmen features Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers, Mirella Freni, and Kostas Paskalis, with Rafael Fru?beck de Burgos conducting the Orchestra of the Th??tre National de l'Op?ra. La Traviata features Beverly Sills, Nicolai Gedda, and Rolando Panerai, with Aldo Ceccato conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; The Marriage of Figaro features Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heather Harper, Judith Blegen, Geraint Evans, Teresa Berganza, and Birgit Finnil?, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the English Chamber Orchestra.Listen. Enjoy. Learn.

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Book SynopsisAngela Gheorghiu is one of the most passionate and talented artists working in opera today, a larger-than-life figure whose intensity and drive, on stage and off, have commanded the attention of the opera world. This authorized biography of the internationally acclaimed soprano, largely composed of exclusive interviews with the artist, covers Gheorghiu’s life and career from her childhood in Communist Romania to her spectacular Covent Garden debut in 1992 and up to the present day. In it, Gheorghiu shares new insights into the performance of many of her iconic stage roles and her collaborations with opera’s leading lights. Also featured are commentaries and reminiscences by such celebrated figures in the music and art worlds as Grace Bumbry, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Marilyn Horne, Bryn Terfel, and Franco Zeffirelli.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments • Preface • Poems of Childhood • Study, Study, Study • Communist Romania and the Path of Music • Romance and Revolution • Falling in Love with Covent Garden • A Star Is Born • New Beginnings • Dramas and Traumas • Royal Encounters • Becoming Tosca • Choices and Launches • Restoring My Faith in Love • Timeline of Career Highlights • Discography • Index of Names

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Book SynopsisMany musical and theatrical traditions walk the very narrow path between the sublime and the ridiculous, but perhaps none more so than opera, which, while maintaining an elegant reputation, makes a show out of princes making romantic speeches to soft fruit, noses being accidentally cut off and woodpeckers performing wedding ceremonies. Opera Obscura is a beautifully illustrated collection that contributes twenty-five brand new impossibly madcap operas to the canon of magnificent absurdities, along with the intricate blueprints for several incredible opera houses and information on of a whole range of almost unbelievably incredible instruments.

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Book SynopsisUnscrupulous, devilishly ambitious and undeniably charismatic, Domenico Barbaja was the most celebrated Italian impresario of the early 1800s and one of the most intriguing characters to dominate the operatic empire of the period. Dubbed the 'Viceroy of Naples', Barbaja managed both the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and La Scala in Milan. He was the influential force behind the careers of a plethora of artists including Vincenzo Bellini, Gioachino Rossini and the great mezzo-soprano Isabella Colbran, who became Barbaja's lover before eventually deserting him to marry Rossini. Most vitally, Barbaja's vision had an irrevocable impact on the history of Italian opera; determined to create a lucrative business, he cultivated an energetic environment of new artists producing innovative, exciting opera that people would flock to hear. Philip Eisenbeiss brilliantly pieces together the forgotten story of a tireless tyrant who began life as a barely educated coffee waiter, yet grew to be one of the richest and most potent men in Italy. A natural entrepreneur, Barbaja had the ability to predict a sensation; a skill he exploited his entire life, forging his fortune as a cafe-owner, arms profiteer, gambling tycoon and eventually, opera magnate. Eisenbeiss unlocks the enigma of this eccentric and fascinating personality that has been hitherto neglected.Trade Review'a delightful read, and it should appeal to opera lovers as well as anybody who has an interest in 18th-century entrepreneurship.' '...a heck of a good read' -- Charlotte Rea '...a fine piece of work; informative, entertaining, written in a hugely accessible style. I particularly liked the detail [he goes] into of the politics of the Kingdom of Naples and how San Carlo and Barbaja rolled with the punches.' -- Sir David McVicar 'Eisenbeiss seems to have read widely in several languages, and is as likely to devote a paragraph to the political ambitions of the Carbonari, the latest forms of gas lighting or the details of a theatrical contract as to the artistic quality or nature of a particular opera or performer ... [he] deserves credit...' '...a highly readable, even entertaining historical work about music and culture in Italy during the 1800s. Author Eisenbeiss, heart in hand, displays admirable research and analytic skills as he makes sense of an almost-unheard-of opera impresario, Domenico Barbaja.'

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Book SynopsisIn Alfred Dörffel''s aria album, the classics of musical theater and other vocal works are lined up and waiting to be sung in class or on stage. Arias from the most famous operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber and Wagner alternate with the best solos from the sacred works by Bach, Handel and Haydn. The texts are in the original language, but some have translations into German, Italian or English.Arien-Album: Berühmte Arien für Sopran und Klavier: Aus geistlichen und weltlichen Werken von Bach bis WagnerIm Arien-Album von Alfred Dörffel reihen sich die Klassiker des Musiktheaters und anderer Vokalwerke und warten darauf, im Unterricht oder auf der Bühne gesungen zu werden. Arien aus den bekanntesten Opern von Mozart, Beethoven, Weber oder Wagner wechseln sich ab mit den besten Soli aus den geistlichen Werke von Bach, Händel und Haydn. Die Texte sind in der Originalsprache gegeben, verfügen teilweise aber über Übersetzungen ins Deutsche, Italienische oder E

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Book SynopsisThough some dismiss opera as old-fashioned, it shows no sign of disappearing from the world's stage. So why do audiences continue to flock to it? This title discovers the fanatics who haunt the legendary Colon Opera House in Buenos Aires, a key site for opera's globalization. It proposes ways of thinking about our relationship to art.Trade Review"Opera inspires passionate responses among audiences. This engaging, subtle book explains how one society shapes those passions. For Benzecry, operagoing in turn illuminates experiences of national honor, of belonging to a city, and of local loyalty to others. Wit and pleasure are not usually found in works of sociology, but they overflow these pages." (Richard Sennett, New York University)"

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Book SynopsisOffers a study of Verdi's operas in Florence in 1859, in the middle of the composer's career. This title features a systematic examination of Verdi's operas, it covered the twenty works produced between 1842 and 1857 - from Nabucco and Macbeth to Il trovatore, La traviata, and Aroldo.Trade Review"Abramo Basevi's The Operas of Giuseppe Verdi represents an extraordinary testimony to a new and important way of writing music criticism in mid-nineteenth-century Italy, and Basevi's terminology and expressions have served as the foundations for influential analytical methods. This translation is polished, elegant, and eminently accessible to a modern reader." -Francesco Izzo, University of Southampton Abramo Basevi (1818-85) was a composer, music promoter, scholar, and critic who played a major role in the cultural life of nineteenth-century Florence. He published extensively on music and philosophy and founded the periodical L'armonia, in which his study of Verdi's operas first appeared. Edward Schneider studied music at Oxford and has translated several books on music and cooking. Stefano Castelvecchi is a lecturer in music at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He is the editor of critical editions of works by Rossini and Verdi and the author of Sentimental Opera: Questions of Genre in the Age of Bourgeois Drama."

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Book SynopsisArtists today are at a crossroads. With funding for the arts and humanities endowments perpetually under attack, and school districts all over the United States scrapping their art curricula altogether, the place of the arts in our civic future is uncertain to say the least. At the same time, faced with the problems of the modern worldfrom water shortages and grave health concerns to global climate change and the now constant threat of terrorismone might question the urgency of this waning support for the arts. In the politically fraught world we live in, is the felt experience even something worth fighting for? In this soul-searching collection of vignettes, Patrick Summers gives us an adamant, impassioned affirmative. Art, he argues, nurtures freedom of thought, and is more necessary now than ever before. As artistic director of the Houston Grand Opera, Summers is well positioned to take stock of the limitations of the professional arts worlda world where the conversation revolves

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Book SynopsisDuring the middle phase of his career, Guiseppe Verdi adopted new compositional procedures to create some of his best-known works. Focusing on the operas he composed during this period, this volume explores Verdi's work from three interlinked perspectives.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Toward an Understanding of Verdi's Middle Period Martin Chusid 1: New Sources for Stiffelio: A Preliminary Report Philip Gossett 2: Compositional Techniques in Stiffelio: Reading the Autograph Sources Kathleen Kuzmick Hansell 3: "A Monk and At Least Some New Things": Verdi, Cammarano, and L'assedio di Firenze Carlo Matteo Mossa 4: "Insolite forme," or Basevi's Garden Path Roger Parker 5: Ottocento Opera as Cultural Drama: Generic Mixtures in Il trovatore James Hepokoski 6: "Something's Been Done to Make Room for Choruses": Choral Conception and Choral Construction in Luisa Miller Markus Engelhardt 7: A New Source for El trovador and Its Implications for the Tonal Organization of Il trovatore Martin Chusid 8: "Proud, Indomitable, Irascible": Allegories of Nation in Attila and Les Vepres siciliennes Mary Ann Smart 9: Masking Music: A Reconsideration of Light and Shade in Un ballo in maschera Elizabeth Hudson 10: "La dama velata": Act II of Un ballo in maschera Harold Powers 11: Meter, Character, and Tinta in Verdi's Operas David Rosen 12: Aspects of Tempo in Verdi's Early and Middle-Period Italian Operas Roberta Montemorra Marvin 13: The Violin Director and Verdi's Middle-Period Operas Linda B. Fairtile List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisDuring the middle phase of his career, Guiseppe Verdi adopted new compositional procedures to create some of his best-known works. Focusing on the operas he composed during this period, this volume explores Verdi's work from three interlinked perspectives.

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Book SynopsisProvides a look behind the scenes into the world of early 18th-century Italian opera. Based on a store of recovered documents, mainly the personal papers of Luca Casimiro degli Albizzi, this social history illustrates the complexities of staging opera in the 1720s and '30s.

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Book SynopsisExplores a variety of fields, considering questions of operatic textuality, dramaturgical practice, and performance theory. This book intends to initiate a dialogue between scholars of music, literature, and performance by addressing questions raised in each field in a manner that influences them all.Trade Review"Levin is one of the few scholars who functions effectively as both a literary critic in the university and a practical dramaturg in the opera house. His fascinating book demonstrates how critical readings of music and text can generate stagings that challenge and compel.... An indispensable guide." - Philip Gossett "Intelligent and lucidly written, Unsettling Opera opens up new and exciting vistas for thinking and writing about opera.... A book that is sure to become required reading for all those interested in the study - and performance - of opera." - German Studies Review"

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Book SynopsisThis analysis of Wagner’s vexed legacy is heightened by the author’s own experience as a dramaturg working on Wagner at the Berlin State Opera.

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Book SynopsisSet in the American West during the California Gold Rush, La fanciulla del West marked a significant departure from Giacomo Puccini's previous and best- known works. Puccini and the Girl is the first book to explore this important but often misunderstood opera that became the earliest work by a major European composer to receive an American premiere when it opened at New York's Metropolitan Opera House in 1910. Adapted from American playwright David Belasco's Broadway production, The Girl of the Golden West, Fanciulla was Puccini's most consciously modern work, and its Met debut received mixed reviews. Annie J. Randall and Rosalind Gray Davis base their account of its creation on previously unknown letters from Puccini to his main librettist, Carlo Zangarini. They mine musical materials, newspaper accounts, and rare photographs and illustrations to tell the full story of this controversial opera. Puccini and the Girl considers the production and reception of Puccini's cowboy opera in

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“The Comedians of the King has the potential to be recognized as a central work on eighteenth-century musical culture. Doe approaches the subject through a mingling of social and political perspectives, keying into the major questions that have arisen about the last decades of the Old Regime in France. This book offers an intriguing discussion about how we might interpret the evolution of public life by looking at it in interdisciplinary perspective.” -- William Weber, California State University, Long Beach“The richness of the book’s vision is remarkable: its elegant syntheses offer a multiple picture of a key operatic genre from its modern formation to mature survival in the age of Wagner. Musical theater studies have needed something like this for a generation now, and Doe has written a persuasive and pleasurable account of the underlying tensions between a ‘national genre’ and the ebb and flow of national politics.” -- David Charlton, Royal Holloway, University of London“Skillfully combining detailed study of a wide range of works with institutional history and royal patronage, The Comedians of the King will transform our understanding of a key chapter in the history of lyric theater. A noteworthy feature of Doe’s work is her ability to weave the political dimension of her narrative with institutional and stylistic developments in opéra comique. Meticulously researched and persuasively argued, this major study is essential reading.” -- Mark Darlow, University of Cambridge“The Comedians of the King provides a fascinating and nuanced account of the process by which the opéra comique, with its humble origins in the Parisian fairgrounds, became the cosmopolitan emblem of l’Europe française and an important vehicle for courtly propaganda. Clearly and compellingly, Doe tells the story of the opéra comique alongside the story of a queen, Marie Antoinette, whose tastes and efforts lay behind its transformation. The result is a book that amplifies our understanding of not only the genre but also the social ambivalences and contradictions it reflected on the eve of the French Revolution.” -- Georgia Cowart, Case Western Reserve University"One of the most valuable contributions of The Comedians of the King is to have integrated a deep dive into the business side of opéra-comique and the administrative machinery of culture, which made it possible for the genre to flourish, with an exploration of the artistic innovations and successes that it accomplished during the final decades of the eighteenth century. As a result of this capacious approach, Julia Doe captures in exemplary fashion the full complexity and paradoxes of the genre’s expansion in late eighteenth-century France. . . . The Comedians of the King will have a lasting impact on the study of eighteenth-century French musical culture and on scholars who, following Doe, hope to ground their work in a robust interdisciplinary methodology." * Journal of the American Musicological Society *"Groundbreaking. . . . Doe’s book presents a new historical account that explains how an originally operatic genre of secondary rank thrived and then outlived a major phase of the Bourbon monarchy. The Comedians of the King presents a freshly conceived continuity of operatic genre through major historic changes." * Music and Letters *"The overarching aim of Doe’s revised story of the opéra-comique is to offer, in her words, a framework that can better ‘match the nuance of the theatrical world it confronts.' Specifically, she hopes ‘to temper the assumed polarities of opera comique and tragédie lyrique; to deepen our understanding of these genre’s political functions; and to better capture the musical complexity, diversity, and contradictions of a society in the process of radical change.' I think the book she has created does achieve these goals, and I know my understanding of the opéra-comique, its social world and its political entanglements is much richer for it." * Eighteenth Century Music *"Doe demonstrates how librettists and composers came to test the limits of this genre by turning it into an alternative to Tragédie lyrique for the elite, while explaining how opéra-comique was exploited in the construction of the cultivated public image of the monarchy. This contribution is all the more important as it offers a nuanced picture of the aesthetic and musical evolutions of a complex genre that contributed to the construction of a genre éminemment national in the nineteenth century." -- Maxime Margollé * H-France Review *Table of ContentsEditorial Principles Introduction Institutional History Dialogue Opera and the Cosmopolitan “Revolution” The Politics of Genre 1. Opéra Comique and the Legacy of Colbert Comic Theater and the Querelle des Bouffons Theater and the NationLa Nouvelle Troupe New Rivalries 2. Character, Class, and Style in the Lyric DrameBienséance in Ancien Régime Opera Opéra Comique and the Drame Romance and Refinement Recitative for the Peuple Lyric Drame at the Opéra 3. The Musical Revolutions of Marie Antoinette The Musical Patronage of a Habsburg QueenTragédie Lyrique and Its Parodies// Italian Opera at the French Court Despotism and Privilège 4. The Decadence of the Pastoral Pastoral Living at the Petit Trianon “Private” Pastorals: The Troupe des Seigneurs Ceremonial Pastorals for Court and Capital The Pastoral as Adaptation: C. S. Favart’s Ninette à la cour 5. “Heroic” Comedy on the Eve of 1789 Opera and Revolution at the Salle Favart The Development of “Heroic” Comedy The “Heroic” Sargines Continuity and Rupture 6. Epilogue: The Foundation of a “People’s” Art Richard Coeur de Lion: The First Fifty YearsRichard Coeur de Lion: The First Hundred Years Conclusions: Richard Coeur de Lion and the Revolutionary Centennial Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFeasting and Fasting in Opera shows that the consumption of food and drink is an essential component of opera, both on and off stage. In this book, opera scholar Pierpaolo Polzonetti explores how convivial culture shaped the birth of opera and opera-going rituals until the mid-nineteenth century, when eating and drinking at the opera house were still common. Through analyses of convivial scenes in operas, the book also shows how the consumption of food and drink, and sharing or the refusal to do so, define characters' identity and relationships. Feasting and Fasting in Opera moves chronologically from around 1480 to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Wagner's operatic reforms banished refreshments during the performance and mandated a darkened auditorium and absorbed listening. The book focuses on questions of comedy, pleasure, embodiment, and indulgencelooking at fasting, poisoning, food disorders, body types, diet, and social, ethnic, and gender identitiesin both tragic aTrade Review”Polzonetti allows himself some nostalgia for the world we have lost, including the experience of eating at the opera, and speculates that operagoers of the past may have possessed ‘a better economy of attention’, which ‘did not include pretending to be engaged when they were not ‘." * Times Literary Supplement *"Feasting and Fasting in Opera is a highly singular book, which is to be expected given that gastromusicology—itself a highly singular term—is associated with one person and one person alone. Pierpaolo Polzonetti has set out to explore how convivial pleasures animated life on both sides of the boundary separating the stage from the world, a boundary that, as he demonstrates, was far more porous before Wagner tacked a 'no food or drink' sign to the door at Bayreuth and locked us all in the dark." * Journal of the American Musicological Society *"Producers of modern entertainments should find useful information about alternative uses of food and drinks, especially if they are considering re-introducing feasting into operatic performances. Thus, this book is for researchers in this field and for opera-buffs." * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *"Brilliant. . . [Polzonetti] demonstrates in delectable prose that food and drink–including how and when they are consumed, and situations in which an individual refrains from eating or refuses to dine with another—are central to a major Western cultural institution: opera." * The Arts Fuse *"The meat of the book is the role of food and drink in an opera’s narrative and music." * UC Davis College of Letters and Science *"Feasting and Fasting in Opera constitutes a novel and welcome link of musicology and food studies. . . Further, it reminds readers how gastronomic pleasures were once blended with the opera going experience, an infusion we might do well to reinstate." * Gastronomica *“Who knew that food and opera are, and have always been, intimately connected? With his humanistic learning, linguistic virtuosity, and trademark tasty wit, Polzonetti takes us from classical texts to cannibalism and on to Callas. Historical recipes are a bonus for readers interested in a more multi-modal experience of Polzonetti’s brilliant work.” -- Mary Hunter, Bowdoin College“Opera and feasting go splendidly together: we want to combine an evening at the opera with a good dinner, even if we are no longer allowed, as we once were, to take our refreshments during a performance. Even so, no one until now has explored the proximity of opera and food in such depth and with such illuminating insights as Pierpaolo Polzonetti. This is the book to turn to if you want to understand that we owe the birth of opera not only to the learned disputations in Renaissance academies, but also to the elaborate multi-media banqueting practices of the period. Polzonetti is attuned to the significance of what and how the audiences ate during performances until the practice was eliminated during the nineteenth century, victim of middle-class propriety. He is just as attuned to the significance of what and how was consumed by the protagonists of Italianate opera from Monteverdi through Mozart, to Verdi and Puccini. This book offers a feast as delicious as it is nutritious, but be forewarned: reading it will make you hungry.” -- Karol Berger, Stanford University“Polzonetti cleverly weaves together the history of opera with a beloved culture of delicious Italian food, and then some!” -- Francesca Zambello, Artistic and General Director of The Glimmerglass Festival and Artistic Director of the Washington National Opera“Food and the opera have certainly always gone together—before, during, and after the show. Today, eating at the opera is no longer considered respectful, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those restrictions are lifted in the near future. Theatergoers would be jealous of the spreads that are backstage in the dressing room areas, and even the little snacks that some performers hide in their costumes in case of an emergency. I just love this book. It’s making me hungry!” -- Nathan Gunn, co-director, Lyric Theatre at Illinois

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Book SynopsisDon Giovanni Captured considers the life of a single opera, engaging with the entire history of its recorded performance. Mozart's opera Don Giovanni has long inspired myths about eros and masculinity. Over time, its performance history has revealed a growing trend toward critiquean increasing effort on the part of performers and directors to highlight the violence and predatoriness of the libertine central character, alongside the suffering and resilience of his female victims. In Don Giovanni Captured, Richard Will sets out to analyze more than a century's worth ofrecorded performances of the opera, tracing the ways it has changed from one performance to another and from one generation to the next. Will consults audio recordings, starting with wax cylinders and 78s, as well as video recordings, including DVDs, films, and streaming videos. As Will argues, recordings and other media shape our experience of opera as much as live performance does. Seen as a historical record, opera recordings are also a potent reminder of the refusal of works such as Don Giovanni to sit still. By choosing a work with such a rich and complex tradition of interpretation, Will helps us see Don Giovanni as a standard-bearer for evolving ideas about desire and power, both on and off the stage.Trade Review"A fascinating new book by the musicologist Richard Will, 'Don Giovanni' Captured, reviews and analyzes the history of recordings of the opera, dating back to the age of early phonograph records at the beginning of the twentieth century. . . Don Giovanni, an opera that is almost entirely set at night, is certainly a dark comedy, if it is a comedy at all, and Will’s study of its exceptionally varied recording history suggests all the different shades of light and darkness that constitute the moral chiaroscuro of this elusive work." * New York Review of Books *“Will combines social sensitivity with a rare trove of historical perceptions that will prove rewarding to readers who have some familiarity with Mozart’s score. His analysis of the changing sound and use of recitative, like his illustration of the crucial role of conductors, is especially enriching.” * Opera News *"Musicologist Richard Will’s fascinating study, Don Giovanni Captured, examines the way Mozart and Da Ponte’s opera has been heard and seen since the birth of recorded sound... For those of us who care about opera, Don Giovanni Captured is a fascinating book." * New York Journal of Books *“Richard Will’s ‘Don Giovanni’ Captured is a welcome addition to approaches to Mozart’s masterpiece, so often marooned in constraining music-critical discourse or run aground in moral debates. Armed now with Will’s multiple accounts of audio and visual recordings, we have a richly mediated history that will disrupt how we think about operas as ‘works’ while superseding more insular and less historical analyses. ‘Don Giovanni’ Captured, by building on a lively archive of performed recordings, will greatly expand the horizons of how we teach and think about this incomparable work.” * Martha Feldman, University of Chicago *“This is a highly original book, one of the first to devote detailed and sustained attention to the history of a work’s recorded interpretation. It is quite astonishing to think that nothing of the sort has existed until now, given that we have lived with recordings for well over a century. ‘Don Giovanni’ Captured constitutes a most welcome and timely addition to the literature on Don Giovanni, Mozart’s operas, the genre of opera, and indeed the entire field of musicology.” * Emanuele Senici, University of Rome La Sapienza *"This is a fascinating and long-overdue study of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni as it has been presented in recorded form, both aurally and visually . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *"This insightful and original study illuminates fundamental trends in the performance of Mozart over the past 125 years, while also exploring the history of the recording industry as well as demonstrating the implications of performance choices for understanding the opera’s many complexities." * Early Music America *Table of ContentsNote to Readers List of Tables List of Figures Introduction Part I Clouds of Feeling: Excerpt Audio Recordings 1 Imagining Excerpts 2 Rhetorics of Seduction 3 Demons and Dandies 4 All Too Human Part II Invented Works: Complete Audio Recordings 5 The Virtual Stage 6 Cruel Laughter 7 Dancing in Time Part III Partial Visions: Video Recordings 8 Zooming In, Gazing Back 9 Trauma Retold 10 Libertines Punished Acknowledgments Notes Discography Videography Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMessa da Requiem is the fourth work to be published in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi. Following the strict requirements of the series, this edition is based on Verdi's autograph and other authentic sources, and has been reviewed by a distinguished editorial boardPhilip Gossett (general editor), Julian Budden, Martin Chusid, Francesco Degrada, Ursula Günther, Giorgio Pestelli, and Pierluigi Petrobelli. It is available as a two-volume set: a full orchestral score and a critical commentary. The appendixes include two pieces from the compositional history of the Requiem: an early version of the Libera me, composed in 1869 as part of a collaborative work planned as a memorial to Rossini; and the Liber scriptus, which in the original score of the Manzoni memorial Requiem was composed as a fugue in G minor. The score, which has been beautifully bound and autographed, is printed on high-grade paper in an oversized format. The introduction to the score discusses the work's genesis, instrumentatio

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Book SynopsisThis critical edition presents the 1854 version as the main score, and also makes available the full score and the original 1853 settings of the revised pieces. For this text Fabrizio della Seta used the composer's autograph and many secondary sources, but also Verdi's previously unknown sketches.

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Book SynopsisProvides information on the music, libretto, and major roles of operas and music theater works by more that one hundred modern American composers, and includes selections from reviews of each work.

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Book SynopsisTraces the developments in the evolution of musical drama. This book aims to reveal the genre's beginnings in the seventeenth century and its progress. It examines the standard performance repertoire and works considered important for the genre's development. It also presents an investigation of opera from Eastern European countries and Finland.Trade ReviewWhether it be Monteverdi or Gluck or Wagner, no saner guide than Grout can be recommended The Times Literary Supplement (of earlier edition) Combines learning with a grace of expression seldom encountered in works of this kind. The subject is treated in greater detail than the word 'short'might indicate. Saturday Review (of earlier edition) A Short History of Opera is perhaps one of the best known and most widely circulated texts on the history of this art form...This is a vitally important book, and it is likely to be one of the first places students, researchers, and fans will consult. -- Tom Kaufman The Opera QuarterlyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface to the Fourth Edition Introduction Part I. Music and Drama to the End of the Sixteenth Century 1. The Lyric Theater of the Greeks 2. Medieval Dramatic Music 3. The Immediate Forerunners of Opera Part II. The Seventeenth Century 4. The Beginnings: Opera in Florence and Mantua 5. Other Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Court Operas, Including the First Comic Operas in Florence and Rome 6. Italian Opera in the Later Seventeenth Century in Italy 7. Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera in German-Speaking Lands 8. Early German Opera 9. Opera in France from Lully to Charpentier 10. Opera in England Part III. The Eighteenth Century 11. Masters of the Early Eighteenth Century 12. Opera Seria: General Characteristics 13. Opera Seria: The Composers 14. The Operas of Gluck 15. The Comic Opera of the Eighteenth Century 16. The Operas of Mozart and His Viennese Contemporaries Part IV. The Nineteenth Century 17. The Turn of the Century 18. Grand Opera 19. Opera Comique, Operetta, and Lyric Opera 20. Italian Opera of the Primo Ottocento: Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Their Contemporaries 21. The Romantic Opera in Germany 22. The Operas of Wagner 23. The Later Nineteenth Century: France, Italy, Germany, and Austria Part V. Other National Traditions of Opera from the Seventeenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries 24. National Traditions of Opera Part VI. The Twentieth Century 25. Introduction / Opera in France and Italy 26. Opera in the German-Speaking Countries 27. National Traditions in Russia and Neighboring Countries; Central and Eastern Europe; Greece and Turkey; the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland; Spain, Portugal, and Latin America 28. Opera in the British Isles; Canada; Australia and New Zealand(r)MDBRO (r)MDNMO 29. Opera in the United States Appendix: Chinese Opera List of Abbreviations Bibliography Sources and Translations of Musical Examples Index

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Book SynopsisDiving into the philosophical depths of Thomas Mann's beloved novella, as imagined in words, music, and film.Trade ReviewPhilip Kitcher's book is a profession of love: for Mann's novella, for Mahler's music, and for the commitment to ideas and reflections on life that a certain current of German culture represented in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One senses that Kitcher has so completely immersed himself in the works of Mann, Mahler's music, their biographies, and to an extent the works by Britten and Visconti, that he speaks from within these works and lives. -- Mark M. Anderson, Columbia University Unusually rich, rewarding, and astounding in its range, Deaths in Venice asks important philosophical questions-about art's demands on its practitioners, its connections to the rest of life, and the possibility of endowing our short, evanescent lives with some lasting significance. More than reaching conclusions, these works provide beginnings: examples of new human possibilities that are not to be imitated but transcended-and that, in large part, is how the book itself proceeds. This is much more than a work on the philosophy of art: it does philosophy with art. -- Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University Deaths in Venice is a thorough discussion of the possible relation of literature, and art in general, to philosophical thinking. It is this double intensity of perspectives-a double intensity that is never sacrificed in the one or the other direction-that makes reading the book a unique experience. -- Rudiger Campe, Yale University Deaths in Venice is to the twenty-first century what Nietzsche's literary and musical criticism was to the nineteenth: a philosopher's profound, shrewd, learned, sharp-eyed, and humane interpretation of art, which is also a profound interpretation of daily life. Starting from the doomed, lonely passion of Thomas Mann's Aschenbach, Philip Kitcher explores three millennia of thinking and the hidden mysteries of the individual mind as it confronts itself, its neighbors, and the universe. -- Edward Mendelson, Columbia University [An] outstanding, intellectually agile book, which sheds so much fresh light on Mann's work and on the philosophical questions that it explores. -- Ritchie Robertson Times Literary Supplement Original and thought provoking... [Deaths in Venice] is a delight to read, and Kitcher's deep commitment to humanism and his passion for art radiate contagiously from every page. -- Iris Vidmar Philosophy and LiteratureTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface List of Abbreviations A Note on Translations 1. Discipline 2. Beauty 3. Shadows Notes Index

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Book SynopsisDiving into the philosophical depths of Thomas Mann's beloved novella, as imagined in words, music, and film.Trade ReviewPhilip Kitcher's book is a profession of love: for Mann's novella, for Mahler's music, and for the commitment to ideas and reflections on life that a certain current of German culture represented in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One senses that Kitcher has so completely immersed himself in the works of Mann, Mahler's music, their biographies, and to an extent the works by Britten and Visconti, that he speaks from within these works and lives. -- Mark M. Anderson, Columbia University Unusually rich, rewarding, and astounding in its range, Deaths in Venice asks important philosophical questions-about art's demands on its practitioners, its connections to the rest of life, and the possibility of endowing our short, evanescent lives with some lasting significance. More than reaching conclusions, these works provide beginnings: examples of new human possibilities that are not to be imitated but transcended-and that, in large part, is how the book itself proceeds. This is much more than a work on the philosophy of art: it does philosophy with art. -- Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University Deaths in Venice is a thorough discussion of the possible relation of literature, and art in general, to philosophical thinking. It is this double intensity of perspectives-a double intensity that is never sacrificed in the one or the other direction-that makes reading the book a unique experience. -- Rudiger Campe, Yale University Deaths in Venice is to the twenty-first century what Nietzsche's literary and musical criticism was to the nineteenth: a philosopher's profound, shrewd, learned, sharp-eyed, and humane interpretation of art, which is also a profound interpretation of daily life. Starting from the doomed, lonely passion of Thomas Mann's Aschenbach, Philip Kitcher explores three millennia of thinking and the hidden mysteries of the individual mind as it confronts itself, its neighbors, and the universe. -- Edward Mendelson, Columbia University [An] outstanding, intellectually agile book, which sheds so much fresh light on Mann's work and on the philosophical questions that it explores. -- Ritchie Robertson Times Literary Supplement Original and thought provoking... [Deaths in Venice] is a delight to read, and Kitcher's deep commitment to humanism and his passion for art radiate contagiously from every page. -- Iris Vidmar Philosophy and LiteratureTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface List of Abbreviations A Note on Translations 1. Discipline 2. Beauty 3. Shadows Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Beverly Sills came along at the perfect moment, quenching the public's thirst for a bona fide STAR. Now this book comes along at the perfect moment to quench this generation's thirst for insight into what made her shine so radiantly."--Joyce DiDonato"Guy's study goes well beyond the operatic stage or record studio to consider her subject's broad appeal and popularity."--ARSC Journal "Guy's refreshing book offers a timely contrast between the cultural backdrop of the 20th century and that of the present… This is a captivating work on Sill's unique, spellbinding artistry. Highly recommended."--Choice "An exhaustively researched, thoughtful, well-written treatment of one of the most important and beloved musicians the U.S. has ever produced."--Timothy D. Taylor, author of The Sounds of Capitalism: Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture"What stays with one most about Guy's study is the passion behind it, and the way it evokes a time in which an opera could be that relevant to so many."--Opera News“Nancy Guy’s The Magic of Beverly Sills couldn’t be more timely. In an era when opera needs stars, the author has given us a fascinating, comprehensive look at the elusive magic of an artist who enchanted not only opera devotees, but the entire nation."--Renée Fleming"Frequently, biographies of opera singers are basically gushing with enthusiasm and overstated personal opinions. This book avoids those pitfalls and adds important scholarly information about how to think about an opera singer, her roles, and her fans."--Naomi André, coeditor of Blackness in Opera"Guy's elegant biography gets to the heart of Sills's magnetic stage presence and parses the performer's power to mesmerize audiences with ineffable and poignant cultural magic."--Jill Dolan, author of The Feminist Spectator in Action: Feminist Criticism for the Stage and Screen

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Book SynopsisAwards:Irving Lowens Award, Society for American Music (SAM), 2019Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society (AMS), 2018Trade ReviewIrving Lowens Award, Society for American Music (SAM), 2019 Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society (AMS), 2018 Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research in Recorded Country, Folk, Roots, or World Music, Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), 2018 Outstanding Achievement in Humanities and Cultural Studies: Media, Visual, and Performance Studies, Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), 2019 "Detailed, historically sound, and entertaining . . . Chinatown Opera Theater in America is an extraordinary accomplishment, and its many revelations open a world unseen for nearly a century. The glory that was is now again seen, as Chinatown Opera Theater puts the spotlight on the high achievements of the early Chinese American community that is too often portrayed otherwise in American history." --International Examiner"Chinatown Opera Theater, with its new global knowledge, provides in that sense a compelling alternative space in which to contemplate -- for opera studies and the academy of which it is a part -- the ongoing and inescapable anxieties of Western-reflexive scholarship." --Cambridge Opera Journal"Rao's detailed and engaging study reminds us of the xenophobia that continues to mark the Asian American experience. This book is implicitly an act of resistance not only against erasure, but also against racist tropes that have existed in history and reverberate into the present." --Theatre Journal"Chinatown Opera Theater in North America is a treasure trove that celebrates the transnational development of Cantonese Opera in North America in the 1920s." --Studies in Theatre and Performance"Achieves a sharpness of focus and depth of detail that takes our understanding of the history of Cantonese opera in North America to a new level . . . Chinatown Opera Theater in North America is an excellent piece of historical scholarship, and a unique and original contribution to our knowledge of Chinese performing arts in the Americas."--Ethnomusicology Forum"Rao's book not only complements Wing Chung Ng's study of the rise of Cantonese Opera and Bell Yung's analysis of its creative process, but also constitutes a significant contribution to Asian-American Studies, Chinese Studies, and American music history."--China Review International"Chinatown Theater in North America represents a significant contribution in theater scholarship. It is a book that is sure to provoke further discussion among all those who have an interest either in Chinese opera or musicology or American history or cultural studies. There is much to impress and enjoy in this interestingly illustrated book, and it is a welcome study of the subject."--Studies in Theatre and Performance"Through her in-depth archival research and adept linguistic and musicological skills, [Rao] brings to light the importance of Chinese immigrant music making. . . . A significant contribution to our understanding of the history of music making, particularly in the United States."--Theatre Survey "Rao's book is an important text that should be included in musicology or ethnomusicology courses, not only for the historical and cultural reference that it brings to bear, but also for how the genre of Cantonese opera improves our understanding of the world today." --American Music Review "An engaging manifesto. . . . This book is an invaluable source for educators, students, and general readers." --Asian Theatre Journal "The story Rao lays out in this work is rich and complex....It is therefore a story that should be of great interest to many CHINOPERL readers." --CHINOPERL "The book is abundant in content and, most of all, admirable in the sense of connectivity Rao adroitly establishes." --Journal of the American Musicological Society "Reading Nancy Yunhua Rao's Chinatown Opera Theater in North America is a great treat. . . . Rao's work makes a crucial contribution to scholarship on Chinese theatre, specifically Cantonese opera, in the diaspora, as well as to larger scholarly discussions on transationalism." --World of Music "Chinatown Opera Theater in North America does nothing less than situate Cantonese opera firmly within the warp and weft of the American musical fabric. . . . All in all, Rao's study is a wonder." --Journal of the Society for American Music "Rao's elegant writing provides insight into the mind of a scholar and researcher. The insistence on lifting 'the silence' and undoing 'invisibility' results in an influential recalibration of narratives on the history of American music." --MUSICultures "Chinatown Opera Theater, with its new global knowledge, provides in that sense a compelling alternative space in which to contemplate -- for opera studies and the academy of which it is a part -- the ongoing and inescapable anxieties of Western-reflexive scholarship." --Cambridge Opera Journal "Comprehensively conceived, exhaustively researched, and clearly written, Rao’s book is an extraordinary achievement documenting a unique musical and theatrical genre in North American history. Showing how border crossing enriches the cultural tapestry of this land, it is a must-read for those interested in American music, theater, and social history."--Bell Yung, coeditor of Music and Cultural Rights

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Book Synopsis One of the most innovative composers of his generation, Mikel Rouse is known for a trilogy of operas that includes Dennis Cleveland and a gift for superimposing pop vernaculars onto avant-garde music. This memoir channels Rouse’s high energy personality into an exuberant account of the precarity and pleasures of artistic creation. Raconteur and starving artist, witty observer and acclaimed musician, Rouse emerged from the legendary art world of 1980s New York to build a forty-year career defined by stage and musical successes, inexhaustible creativity, and a support network of famous faces, loyal allies, and high art hustlers. Rouse guides readers through a working artists’ hardscrabble life while illuminating the unromantic truth that a project’s reception may depend on a talented cast and crew but can depend on reliable air conditioning. Candid and hilarious, The World Got Away is a one-of-a-kind account of a creative life fue

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Book SynopsisAwards:Irving Lowens Award, Society for American Music (SAM), 2019Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society (AMS), 2018Trade ReviewIrving Lowens Award, Society for American Music (SAM), 2019 Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society (AMS), 2018 Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research in Recorded Country, Folk, Roots, or World Music, Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), 2018 Outstanding Achievement in Humanities and Cultural Studies: Media, Visual, and Performance Studies, Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), 2019 "Detailed, historically sound, and entertaining . . . Chinatown Opera Theater in America is an extraordinary accomplishment, and its many revelations open a world unseen for nearly a century. The glory that was is now again seen, as Chinatown Opera Theater puts the spotlight on the high achievements of the early Chinese American community that is too often portrayed otherwise in American history." --International Examiner"Chinatown Opera Theater, with its new global knowledge, provides in that sense a compelling alternative space in which to contemplate -- for opera studies and the academy of which it is a part -- the ongoing and inescapable anxieties of Western-reflexive scholarship." --Cambridge Opera Journal"Rao's detailed and engaging study reminds us of the xenophobia that continues to mark the Asian American experience. This book is implicitly an act of resistance not only against erasure, but also against racist tropes that have existed in history and reverberate into the present." --Theatre Journal"Chinatown Opera Theater in North America is a treasure trove that celebrates the transnational development of Cantonese Opera in North America in the 1920s." --Studies in Theatre and Performance"Achieves a sharpness of focus and depth of detail that takes our understanding of the history of Cantonese opera in North America to a new level . . . Chinatown Opera Theater in North America is an excellent piece of historical scholarship, and a unique and original contribution to our knowledge of Chinese performing arts in the Americas."--Ethnomusicology Forum"Rao's book not only complements Wing Chung Ng's study of the rise of Cantonese Opera and Bell Yung's analysis of its creative process, but also constitutes a significant contribution to Asian-American Studies, Chinese Studies, and American music history."--China Review International"Chinatown Theater in North America represents a significant contribution in theater scholarship. It is a book that is sure to provoke further discussion among all those who have an interest either in Chinese opera or musicology or American history or cultural studies. There is much to impress and enjoy in this interestingly illustrated book, and it is a welcome study of the subject."--Studies in Theatre and Performance"Through her in-depth archival research and adept linguistic and musicological skills, [Rao] brings to light the importance of Chinese immigrant music making. . . . A significant contribution to our understanding of the history of music making, particularly in the United States."--Theatre Survey "Rao's book is an important text that should be included in musicology or ethnomusicology courses, not only for the historical and cultural reference that it brings to bear, but also for how the genre of Cantonese opera improves our understanding of the world today." --American Music Review "An engaging manifesto. . . . This book is an invaluable source for educators, students, and general readers." --Asian Theatre Journal "The story Rao lays out in this work is rich and complex....It is therefore a story that should be of great interest to many CHINOPERL readers." --CHINOPERL "The book is abundant in content and, most of all, admirable in the sense of connectivity Rao adroitly establishes." --Journal of the American Musicological Society "Reading Nancy Yunhua Rao's Chinatown Opera Theater in North America is a great treat. . . . Rao's work makes a crucial contribution to scholarship on Chinese theatre, specifically Cantonese opera, in the diaspora, as well as to larger scholarly discussions on transationalism." --World of Music "Chinatown Opera Theater in North America does nothing less than situate Cantonese opera firmly within the warp and weft of the American musical fabric. . . . All in all, Rao's study is a wonder." --Journal of the Society for American Music "Rao's elegant writing provides insight into the mind of a scholar and researcher. The insistence on lifting 'the silence' and undoing 'invisibility' results in an influential recalibration of narratives on the history of American music." --MUSICultures "Chinatown Opera Theater, with its new global knowledge, provides in that sense a compelling alternative space in which to contemplate -- for opera studies and the academy of which it is a part -- the ongoing and inescapable anxieties of Western-reflexive scholarship." --Cambridge Opera Journal "Comprehensively conceived, exhaustively researched, and clearly written, Rao’s book is an extraordinary achievement documenting a unique musical and theatrical genre in North American history. Showing how border crossing enriches the cultural tapestry of this land, it is a must-read for those interested in American music, theater, and social history."--Bell Yung, coeditor of Music and Cultural Rights

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIn the last 20 years, scholarly research on opera has encompassed cultural, media, gender, psychoanalytic, and literary theories. With this book, Everett makes an important, impressive contribution to that scholarship. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *[O]ne of the most satisfying aspects of Reconfiguring Myth is Everett's sensitive attention to the way different productions articulate an opera as historical drama, allegory, and myth; such case studies set a new standard in our understanding of contemporary opera as not only a multi-dimensional, but also a constantly changing theatrical experience. * Music and Letters *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations1. Toward a Multimodal Discourse on Opera2. Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar: A Myth of "Wounded" Freedom3. Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater: A Narrative of Trauma and Ambivalence4. John Adams' Doctor Atomic: A Faustian Parable for the Modern Age?5. The Anti-hero in Tan Dun's The First EmperorEpilogue: Opera as Myth in the Global AgeGlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex

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