Classical Opera category: 1804 books
A Mad Love
An Introduction to Opera
Language: English
Release Date: September 18, 2018
A lively introduction to opera, from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century
There are few art forms as visceral and emotional as opera--and few that are as daunting for newcomers. A Mad Love offers a spirited and indispensable tour of opera's eclectic past and present, beginning with Monteverdi's...
Symphony of Seduction
The Great Love Stories of Classical Composers
Language: English
Release Date: August 7, 2018
The orchestra has tuned, the lights in the hall have dimmed, and the conductor’s baton signals the downbeat for the beginning of the romance. Settle back – it’s telling you something…
The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches,...
Swooning
A Classical Music Guide to Life, Love, Lust and Other Follies
Language: English
Release Date: November 18, 2015
The orchestra has tuned, the lights in the hall have dimmed, and the conductor’s baton signals the downbeat for the beginning of the romance. Settle back – it’s telling you something… The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches, poverty,...
Rossini’s La Cenerentola
A Short Guide to a Great Opera
Language: English
Release Date: May 18, 2012
Rossini’s La Cenerentola (or Cinderella) is one of the most popular comic operas in the classical repertoire – the timeless fairy tale about the triumph of virtue over snobbery. Its first performance at Rome’s Teatro Valle in January 1817 – when the composer was not yet 25 – was the customary...
Mozart's Così Fan Tutte
A Short Guide to a Great Opera
Language: English
Release Date: May 25, 2012
A couple of smooth army officers in metropolitan Naples become increasingly horrified as they find that they are losing their bet with a misogynist philosopher. The wager? That their fiancées will be faithful. Their disguise as Albanians in an attempt to entrap their fiancées, and the complicity...
by Edward Said
Language: English
Release Date: November 8, 2007
Language: English
Release Date: November 8, 2007
Music at the Limits is the first book to bring together three decades of Edward W. Said's essays and articles on music. Addressing the work of a variety of composers, musicians, and performers, Said carefully draws out music's social, political, and cultural contexts and, as a classically trained...
Waiting for Verdi
Opera and Political Opinion in Nineteenth-Century Italy, 1815-1848
Language: English
Release Date: June 22, 2018
The name Giuseppe Verdi conjures images of Italians singing opera in the streets and bursting into song at political protests or when facing the firing squad. While many of the accompanying stories were exaggerated, or even invented, by later generations, Verdi's operas—along with those by Rossini,...
by Eric Crozier
Language: English
Release Date: August 26, 2016
Language: English
Release Date: August 26, 2016
“The Little Sweep” is a three-scene opera aimed at children written by the English composer Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Eric Crozier. It is the second part of “Let's Make an Opera!”, the first part being a play within which the cast assume the roles of amateur performers planning,...
by Edward J. Dent
Language: English
Release Date: April 26, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: April 26, 2013
This edition features a linked Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Chronology
Chapter I
Birth and parentage — studies under Zachow at Halle — Hamburg — friendship and
duel with Mattheson — Almira — departure for Italy.
Chapter II
Arrival in Italy — Rodrigo — Rome: Cardinal Ottoboni...
by Hugh Macdonald
Language: English
Release Date: July 23, 2014
Language: English
Release Date: July 23, 2014
Today Georges Bizet is most immediately recognized as the composer of the acclaimed opera Carmen. One of the most frequently performed operas for over a century, Carmen explores concepts such as the femme fatale and murderous jealousy with vivacity, color, and a wealth of melody. Yet it is only one...
by Giuseppe Verdi, Peter Russell
Language: English
Release Date: April 12, 2019
Language: English
Release Date: April 12, 2019
The operas of the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi are among the greatest achievements of nineteenth century culture and remain at the heart of the opera repertory today. His extraordinary works took the opera world by storm, transforming and dominating the world of opera for over 30 years. Verdi modified...
A Sociable Moment
Opera and Festive Culture in Baroque Siena
Language: English
Release Date: May 2, 2016
After their military defeat by the Florentines in the mid-sixteenth century, the citizens of Siena turned from politics to celebratory, social occasions to express their civic identity and show their capacity for collective action. In the first major work of its kind, Colleen Reardon opens a window...
Corresponding with Carlos
A Biography of Carlos Kleiber
Language: English
Release Date: November 30, 2011
Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004) was the greatest conductor of his generation. His reputation is legendary, and yet astonishingly, in his five decades on the podium, he conducted only 89 concerts, some 600 opera performances, and produced 12 recordings. How did someone who worked so little compared to his...
Ombra
Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century
Language: English
Release Date: March 9, 2012
Ombra is the term which applies to an operatic scene involving the appearance of an oracle or demon, witches, or ghosts. Such scenes can be traced back to the early days of opera and were commonplace in the seventeenth century in Italy and France. Operas based on the legends of Orpheus, Iphigenia,...