The Opera Lover's Companion

The Opera Lover's Companion

Author: Charles Osborne

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 648

ISBN-13: 9780300123739

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Written by a well-known authority, this book consists of 175 entries that set some of the most popular operas within the context of their composer's career, outline the plot, discuss the music, and more.


The Opera Lover's Cookbook

The Opera Lover's Cookbook

Author: Francine Segan

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Published: 2006-11-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781584795360

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"Each chapter of Opera Lover's Cookbook presents a culinary performance--an elegant five-course dinner, a brunch, a dessert party--scored to a particular operatic motif or keyed to the work of a renowned composer. Operas set in Spain--Carmen, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Don Giovanni--are the exotic backdrop for a tapas fiesta. The far-flung locales of Puccini's La Boh?me, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, and Turandot inspire an eclectic international buffet. A rustic Italian dinner is orchestrated to the strains of Verdi's Traviata. And Gilbert and Sullivan, of course, provide the overture for an English-style pub supper"--Publisher website (November 2006).


A Mad Love

A Mad Love

Author: Vivien Schweitzer

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0465096948

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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 L'Orfeo in 1607, generally considered the first successful opera, through classics like Carmen and La Boheme, and spanning to Brokeback Mountain and The Death of Klinghoffer in recent years. Musician and critic Vivien Schweitzer acquaints readers with the genre's most important composers and some of its most influential performers, recounts its long-standing debates, and explains its essential terminology. Today, opera is everywhere, from the historic houses of major opera companies to movie theaters and public parks to offbeat performance spaces and our earbuds. A Mad Love is an essential book for anyone who wants to appreciate this living, evolving art form in all its richness.


The Limelight Book of Opera

The Limelight Book of Opera

Author: Arthur Jacobs

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 9780879100445

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Biographical sketches of the composers and critical interpretations of their productions accompany these summaries of eighty-seven famous operas


Italian for Opera Lovers

Italian for Opera Lovers

Author: Hassan W. Ebron

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 39

ISBN-13: 9780942208177

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In the sixteenth century, a group of Renaissance Italians sat down together to revive the lost art of Greek and Roman drama, as part of the great rebirth of learning that had already revolutionized the arts of painting, poetry, architecture. To name this "new" art, they used the word for any general work of art, opus, the plural in Latin being "opera." Opera today is experiencing another revival. Works by American composers such as Philip Glass and John Adams now stand alongside the great Italian, Russian, German, French operas. The repertoire is not closed, and the industry-singers, orchestras, stage designers, opera houses, publishers, and opera-goers-flourishes around the world. This little book is offered as a compendium of Italian terms describing the techniques and refinements that propelled this art into an enduring position among the arts. Italian terms are explained in English. Also, Italian poetry in English: Dante and His Circle (www.createspace.com/4024060) Vita Nuova (Dante on Beatrice) Ovid, The Changes (web only: www.bandannabooks.com/ovid). And Shakespeare plays with Italian settings: Two Gentlemen of Verona (www.createspace.com/3724080) The Merchant of Venice (www.createspace.com/3727221) The Taming of the Shrew (www.createspace.com/3718477) Romeo and Juliet (www.createspace.com/3892597)


At the Opera

At the Opera

Author: Ann Fiery

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2003-08

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9780811827744

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A tribute to thirty renowned operas shares the plots and theatrical backgrounds of each, in a volume that covers such productions as Figaro and Turandot.


Degas at the Opera

Degas at the Opera

Author: Henri Loyrette

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0500023395

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A lavish new investigation into the Paris Opera’s influence on Edgar Degas's painting. From his debut in the 1860s up to his final works after 1900, the Paris Opera formed a focal point of Edgar Degas's paintings. He explored the theater's various spaces—auditorium and stage, private boxes, foyers, and dance studios—and painted those who frequented them: dancers, singers, orchestral musicians, audience members, and subscribers watching from the wings. This theater presented a microcosm of infinite possibilities, allowing him to experiment with multiple points of view, contrasting lighting, motion, and the precision of movement. This catalog, created in concert with an exhibition at the Muse´e d'Orsay in Paris, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, considers the Paris Opera’s influence on Degas as a whole, examining not only his passionate relationship with the house and his musical tastes, but also the infinite resources of the opera's marvelous toolbox. Filled with striking reproductions of Degas’s work and including insightful essays by leading curators and scholars, Degas at the Opera offers admission into the world of Degas and the Paris Opera of the nineteenth century.


Opera 101

Opera 101

Author: Fred Plotkin

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2013-07-16

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 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.