When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field. Now, more than five decades later, this thoroughly revised and expanded fourth edition informs and entertains opera lovers just as its predecessors have.
The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic form in the lyric theater of the Greeks, medieval dramatic music, and other forerunners, the book reveals the genre's beginnings in the seventeenth century and follows its progress to the present day.
A Short History of Opera examines not only the standard performance repertoire, but also works considered important for the genre's development. Its expanded scope investigates opera from Eastern European countries and Finland. The section on twentieth-century opera has been reorganized around national operatic traditions including a chapter devoted solely to opera in the United States, which incorporates material on the American musical and ties between classical opera and popular musical theater. A separate section on Chinese opera is also included.
With an extensive multilanguage bibliography, more than one hundred musical examples, and stage illustrations, this authoritative one-volume survey will be invaluable to students and serious opera buffs. New fans will also find it highly accessible and informative. Extremely thorough in its coverage, A Short History of Opera is now more than ever the book to turn to for anyone who wants to know about the history of this art form.
- CONTENTS
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- PREFACE TO THE 4TH EDITION
- INTRODUCTION
- PART 1: Music and Drama to the End of the Sixteenth Century
- Chapter 1: The Lyric Theater of the Greeks
- Chapter 2: Medieval Dramatic Music
- Chapter 3: The Immediate Forerunners of Opera
- PART 2: The Seventeenth Century
- Chapter 4: The Beginnings: Opera in Florence and Mantua
- Chapter 5: Other Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Court Operas, Including the First Comic Operas in Florence and Rome
- Chapter 6: Italian Opera in the Later Seventeeth Century in Italy
- Chapter 7: Seventeeth-Century Italian Opera in German-Speaking Lands
- Chapter 8: Early German Opera
- Chapter 9: Opera in france from Lully to Charpentier
- Chapter 10: Opera in England
- PART 3: The Eighteenth Century
- Chapter 11: Masters of the Early Eighteenth Century
- Chapter 12: Opera Seria: General Characteristics
- Chapter 13: Opera Seria: The Composers
- Chapter 14: The Opera of Gluck
- Chapter 15: The Comic Opera of teh Eighteenth Century
- Chapter 16: The Operas of Mozart and His Viennese Contemporaries
- PART 4: The Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 17: The Turn of the Century
- Chapter 18: Grand Opera
- Chapter 19: Opera Comique, Operetta, and Lyric Opera
- Chapter 20: Italian Opera of the Primo Ottocento: Rossini, Doizetti, Verdi, and Their Contemporaries
- Chapter 21: The Romantic Opera in Germany
- Chapter 22: The Operas of Wagner
- Chapter 23: The Later Nineteeth Century: France, Italy, Germany, and Austria
- PART 5: Other National Traditions of Opera from the Seventeeth to the Early Twentieth Centuries
- Chapter 24: National Traditions of Opera
- PART 6: The Twentieth Century
- Chapter 25: Introduction/Opera in France and Italy
- Chapter 26: Opera in the German-Speaking Countries
- Chapter 27: National Opera in Russia and Neighboring Countries;Centeral and Eastern Europe; Greece and Turkey; the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, Spain, Portugal and Latin America
- Chapter 28: Opera in the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
- Chapter 29: Opera in the United States
- Appendix
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Sources and Translations of Musical Examples
- Index
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