Opera 101

Opera 101
Author: Fred Plotkin
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2013-07-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1401306004

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Opera is the fastest growing of all the performing arts, attracting audiences of all ages who are enthralled by the gorgeous music, vivid drama, and magnificent production values. If you've decided that the time has finally come to learn about opera and discover for yourself what it is about opera that sends your normally reserved friends into states of ecstatic abandon, this is the book for you. Opera 101 is recognized as the standard text in English for anyone who wants to become an opera lover--a clear, friendly, and truly complete handbook to learning how to listen to opera, whether on the radio, on recordings, or live at the opera house. Fred Plotkin, an internationally respected writer and teacher about opera who for many years was performance manager of the Metropolitan Opera, introduces the reader (whatever his or her level of musical knowledge) to all the elements that make up opera, including: A brief, entertaining history of opera; An explanation of key operatic concepts, from vocal types to musical conventions; Hints on the best way to approach the first opera you attend and how to best understand what is happening both offstage and on; Lists of recommended books and recordings, and the most complete traveler's guide to opera houses around the world. The major part of Opera 101 is devoted to an almost minute-by-minute analysis of eleven key operas, ranging from Verdi's thunderous masterpiece Rigoletto and Puccini's electrifying Tosca through works by Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini, Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, to the psychological complexities of Richard Strauss's Elektra. Once you have completed Opera 101, you will be prepared to see and hear any opera you encounter, thanks to this book's unprecedentedly detailed and enjoyable method of revealing the riches of opera.

Opera 101

Opera 101
Author: Fred Plotkin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1994
Genre: MUSIC
ISBN: 9780316291484

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Written by an opera insider and featuring an introduction by Placido Domingo, here is a thorough, friendly, and truly complete guide to learning how to love and appreciate the opera. After a brief history of opera, the book includes a guide to operatic terms, a minute-by-minute listener's guide to 11 central works, a list of recommended books and recordings and much more.

Opera and Its Symbols

Opera and Its Symbols
Author: Robert Donington
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780300056617

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Explains the use of symbolism in opera, interprets scenes from Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Stravinsky, and Britten, and stresses the importance of staging an opera in accord with the composer's intended use of symbols

The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera

The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera
Author: Roger Parker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 618
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780192854452

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A historical survey of opera, from its beginnings in Florence 400 years ago, up to opera in the 1990s.

Ticket to the Opera

Ticket to the Opera
Author: Phil G. Goulding
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 721
Release: 2011-03-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0307761843

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In Ticket to the Opera, Phil G. Goulding finally makes the magic and mystique of opera accessible to all. Here he offers a complete operatic education, including history, definitions of key musical terms, opera lore and gossip, portraits of famous singers and the roles they immortalized, as well as pithy introductions to the greatest operas of Europe and America and their composers. The book's centerpiece is what Goulding terms "the collection"--85 classics, among them Aida, The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, and Madama Butterfly, that have been packing the world's opera houses for years. This entertaining, meticulously researched book also includes a fascinating chapter on American opera from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess to Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach and a discussion of the gems of twentieth-century opera featuring works like Leos Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen, Alban Berg's Lulu, and Serge Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges. Whether you're a curious neophyte, a music lover interested in branching out, or an aficionado eager to compare notes with a brilliant fellow opera buff, you'll prize Ticket to the Opera as an essential volume in your music library.

Operas in English

Operas in English
Author: Margaret Ross Griffel
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 1015
Release: 2012-12-21
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0810883252

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Although many opera dictionaries and encyclopedias are available, very few are devoted exclusively to operas in a single language. In this revised and expanded edition of Operas in English: A Dictionary, Margaret Ross Griffel brings up to date her original work on operas written specifically to an English text (including works both originally prepared in English, as well as English translations). Since its original publication in 1999, Griffel has added nearly 800 entries to the 4,300 from the original volume, covering the world of opera in the English language from 1634 through 2011. Listed alphabetically by letter, each opera entry includes alternative titles, if any; a full, descriptive title; the number of acts; the composer’s name; the librettist’s name, the original language of the libretto, and the original source of the text, with the source title; the date, place, and cast of the first performance; the date of composition, if it occurred substantially earlier than the premiere date; similar information for the first U.S. (including colonial) and British (i.e., in England, Scotland, or Wales) performances, where applicable; a brief plot summary; the main characters (names and vocal ranges, where known); some of the especially noteworthy numbers cited by name; comments on special musical problems, techniques, or other significant aspects; and other settings of the text, including non-English ones, and/or other operas involving the same story or characters (cross references are indicated by asterisks). Entries also include such information as first and critical editions of the score and libretto; a bibliography, ranging from scholarly studies to more informal journal articles and reviews; a discography; and information on video recordings. Griffel also includes four appendixes, a selective bibliography, and two indexes. The first appendix lists composers, their places and years of birth and death, and their operas included in the text as entries; the second does the same for librettists; the third records authors whose works inspired or were adapted for the librettos; and the fourth comprises a chronological listing of the A–Z entries, including as well as the date of first performance, the city of the premiere, the short title of the opera, and the composer. Griffel also include a main character index and an index of singers, conductors, producers, and other key figures.

Early Opera in America

Early Opera in America
Author: O. G. Sonneck
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2023-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 3385200415

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Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

Singing in Signs

Singing in Signs
Author: Gregory J. Decker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2020-01-23
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190620641

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Singing in Signs: New Semiotic Explorations of Opera offers a bold and refreshing assessment of the state of opera study as seen through the lens of semiotics. At its core, the volume responds to Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker's Analyzing Opera, utilizing a semiotic framework to embrace opera on its own terms and engage all of its constituent elements in interpretation. Chapters in this collection resurrect the larger sense of serious operatic study as a multi-faceted, interpretive discipline, no longer in isolation. Contributors pay particular attention to the musical, dramatic, cultural, and performative in opera and how these modes can create an intertext that informs interpretation. Combining traditional and emerging methodologies, Singing in Signs engages composer-constructed and work-specific music-semiotic systems, broader socio-cultural music codes, and narrative strategies, with implications for performance and staging practices today.

The Management of Opera

The Management of Opera
Author: P. Agid
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2010-10-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 023029927X

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This book presents the current and future issues facing opera houses and opera companies. Problems in different environments need different solutions. In particular, it opposes the American method of managing cultural institutions, preferring a European one where public support and funds plays a major role.

Blumenfeld's Dictionary of Musical Theater

Blumenfeld's Dictionary of Musical Theater
Author: Robert Blumenfeld
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2010
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0879103728

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Have you heard of the first American musical, "The Black Crook", which opened in 1866 and had fifteen revivals? Its chorus of ladies in pink tights was a sensation! Do you know Oscar Straus' hilarious parody of Wagner's Ring cycle, "Die lustigen Nibelungen" ("The Merry Nibelungs")? Do you know who the Ricci brothers, the Piccinni family, Edmond Audran, David Braham, or Francois-Joseph Gossec were? Look them up in this remarkable, thoroughly researched, lively book. Packed with nuggets of useful and fascinating information, with nearly 1,800 entries, this is a must-have research tool and handy reference for the theater and music lover, student, teacher, professional singer, director, and producer. Meant as a supplement and companion to Blumenfeld's "Dictionary of Acting and Show Business" (Limelight, 2009), this unique dictionary is chock-full of information about all the various genres of musical theater; thumbnail plot summaries of many well-known and some more obscure works; thumbnail biographies of composers and writers; and, dance, theatrical, and music terminology. Historical terms and foreign terms (with pronunciations) are included, along with information on available recordings of many obscure pieces. Convenient lists of the works of Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Gilbert and Sullivan, Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and many others are provided.