Description
Book Synopsis“The best single volume ever written on the subject, such is its range, authority, and readability.”—
Times Literary SupplementTrade Review"Fantastically clear-sighted and down-to-earth . . . focuses on what opera is and was rather than what it should be or would like to have been. . . . Their virtuosic spring-clean of opera’s past reveals an art form quite different to the one that we come across today." -- The Telegraph (UK)
"Reason to applaud . . . vast scholarly authority is put to the service of a narrative both lucid and sweeping." -- Jeremy Eichler - Boston Globe
"Unfailingly intelligent . . . their coverage of every period in opera’s history is scrupulous and provocative." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Will surely become essential reading for anyone seeking an engaging and highly informed chronicle of the great composers and their works." -- Daniel Snowman - Opera
"A highly idiosyncratic and personal history of opera. [It] has a brio, insouciance, and even irreverence that are very much their own." -- G.W. Bowersock - The New Republic
"Fresh . . . brave, challenging and, above all, useful." -- Literary Review
