Classical Opera category: 1804 books
Verdi's La Traviata
A Short Guide to a Great Opera
Language: English
Release Date: February 20, 2013
Verdi’s now-popular opera was a fiasco in Venice in 1853, attributable perhaps to the prima donna being noticeably obese, despite apparently wasting with tuberculosis. Soon, however, Verdi’s scandalous love story was on stage contemporaneously at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Covent Garden and Drury...
Verdi's Rigoletto
A Short Guide to a Great Opera
Language: English
Release Date: February 20, 2013
From the première of Rigoletto at Venice’s La Fenice in 1851, the Duke’s La donna è mobile caught on with the public and has done much to ensure the ongoing popularity of Verdi’s opera about the body in the sack. Rigoletto, the sarcastic court jester, is cursed by a nobleman who he has mocked....
Great Operas
A Guide to Twenty-Five of the World's Finest Musical Experiences
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2012
With four famous operas each from Mozart, Verdi and Puccini, and two each from Rossini and Donizetti, there is a feast of information. Here are short guides to The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni; to the splendour of Aïda, the heart-breaking La Traviata; the drama of Tosca. The range is very...
The Faber Pocket Guide to Opera
New Edition
Language: English
Release Date: April 29, 2014
This new edition of leading opera critic Rupert Christiansen's perennially popular Pocket Guide has between extensively revised, and incorporates many more operas from all periods, including recent works by Philip Glass, Mark Anthony Turnage, Thomas Adès and George Benjamin.
Whether you are...
Giacomo Puccini
A Discography
Language: English
Release Date: June 21, 2012
Opera recordings have been with us since the creation of the first wax cylinders. Now at a time when the 25-year reign of the compact disc appears to be coming to an end is the moment to take stock of the history of recordings of arguably the most popular composer of operas, Giacomo Puccini. In Giacomo...
Messiah
The Composition and Afterlife of Handel's Masterpiece
Language: English
Release Date: October 24, 2017
From Handel's renowned biographer, the story of one of the most celebrated compositions of Western classical music, Handel's famous oratorio, Messiah
In the late summer of 1741, George Friderick Handel, composed an oratorio set to words from the King James Bible, rich in tuneful arias and magnificent...
Wagner Without Fear
Learning to Love--and Even Enjoy--Opera's Most Demanding Genius
Language: English
Release Date: June 16, 2010
Do you cringe when your opera-loving friends start raving about the latest production of Tristan? Do you feel faint just thinking about the six-hour performance of Parsifal you were given tickets to? Does your mate accuse you of having a Tannhäuser complex? If you're baffled by the behavior of Wagner...
Nationalist and Populist Composers
Voices of the American People
Language: English
Release Date: December 22, 2017
Populism and nationalism in classical music held a significant place between the world wars with composers such as George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein creating a soundtrack to the lives of everyday Americans. While biographies of these individual composers exist, no single book has...
Molto Agitato
The Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera
Language: English
Release Date: September 9, 2003
If the opera world is full of “intrigue, double meanings, and devious dramatics,” then no place exemplifies this more than the world-famous Metropolitan Opera, where politics, ambition, and oversized egos have traditionally taken center stage along with some of the world’s richest music. Drawing...
by Peter Russell
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2017
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2017
Widely regarded as the greatest composer that ever lived, Ludwig van Beethoven was the principal musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. Dominating a period of musical history as no other composer before or since, Beethoven produced monumental works that...
by Gareth Malone
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2012
Collins Shorts – insight in an instant. There’s more to classical music than Beethoven’s Fifth, but where to start? Gareth Malone, the charismatic TV choirmaster, gives you some easy tips on how to appreciate a whole new world of music. Collins Shorts are a fresh look at the ebook short, with...
The Gilded Stage
A Social History of Opera
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2010
Fascinating and highly readable, this is the definitive social history of the world's most romantic, flamboyant, glamorous, and politically influential art-form: opera
From its beginnings in the Renaissance cities of northern Italy opera has permeated through Europe, America, and beyond, becoming...
Last Night of the Proms
An Official Miscellany
Language: English
Release Date: May 31, 2018
The ultimate celebration of the world’s favourite classical knees-up!
With a foreword from Katie Derham
Ever since Sir Henry Wood’s Proms were first broadcast in 1927, Last Night has become an annual appointment for classical music lovers and is enjoyed by millions around the world....
Opera in the Age of Rousseau
Music, Confrontation, Realism
Language: English
Release Date: October 25, 2012
Historians of French politics, art, philosophy and literature have long known the tensions and fascinations of Louis XV's reign, the 1750s in particular. David Charlton's study comprehensively re-examines this period, from Rameau to Gluck and elucidates the long-term issues surrounding opera. Taking...