Author: Denise Gallo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136088024
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
Opera: The Basics offers an excellent introduction to four centuries of opera. Its easy to follow sections explore topics including: the origins of opera basic terminology the history of major opera genres including: serious opera, comic opera, semi-serious opera and vernacular opera. With key notes, discography and videography, this is the ideal book for students and interested listeners who want to learn more about this important musical genre.
Author: Fred Plotkin
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1401306004
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 444
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Book Description
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.
Author: Fred Plotkin
Publisher: Hyperion
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
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.
Author: Vivien Schweitzer
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465096948
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
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.
Author: Laura Williams Macy
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195337654
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 649
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Book Description
Covering over 1500 singers from the birth of opera to the present day, this marvelous volume will be an essential resource for all serious opera lovers and an indispensable companion to the enormously successful Grove Book of Operas. The most comprehensive guide to opera singers ever produced, this volume offers an alphabetically arranged collection of authoritative biographies that range from Marion Anderson (the first African American to perform at the Met) to Benedict Zak (the classical tenor and close friend and colleague of Mozart). Readers will find fascinating articles on such opera stars as Maria Callas and Enrico Caruso, Ezio Pinza and Fyodor Chaliapin, Lotte Lehmann and Jenny Lind, Lily Pons and Luciano Pavarotti. The profiles offer basic information such as birth date, vocal style, first debut, most memorable roles, and much more. But these articles often go well beyond basic biographical information to offer colorful portraits of the singer's personality and vocal style, plus astute evaluations of their place in operatic history and many other intriguing observations. Many entries also include suggestions for further reading, so that anyone interested in a particular performer can explore their life and career in more depth. In addition, there are indexes of singers by voice type and by opera role premiers. The articles are mostly drawn from the acclaimed Grove Music Online and have been fully revised, and the book is further supplemented by more than 40 specially commissioned articles on contemporary singers. A superb new guide from the first name in opera reference, The Grove Book of Opera Singers is a lively and authoritative work, beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white pictures. It is an essential volume--and the perfect gift--for opera lovers everywhere.
Author: Sara Gamarro
Publisher: Rugginenti Editore
ISBN: 8876652612
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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Book Description
This book is a complete guide to the magic spells that the lyric diction of Italian Opera has cast on its audience for the last four hundred years, revealed and explained in their secrets by the author through an exact method of study whose effectiveness has been proven, over more than a decade of coaching activity, on her many students - Opera stars included - all over the world.
Author: Tim Carter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190247959
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Opera is often regarded as the pinnacle of high art. A "Western" genre with global reach, it is where music and drama come together in unique ways, supported by stellar singers and spectacular scenic effects. Yet it is also patently absurd -- why should anyone break into song on the dramatic stage? -- and shrouded in mystique. In this engaging and entertaining guide, renowned music scholar Tim Carter unravels its many layers to offer a thorough introduction to Italian opera from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. Eschewing the technical musical detail that all too often dominates writing on opera, Carter begins instead where the composers themselves did: with the text. Walking readers through the relationship between music and poetry that lies at the heart of any opera, Carter then offers explorations of five of the most enduring and emblematic Italian operas: Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea; Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt; Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro; Verdi's Rigoletto; and Puccini's La Bohème. Shedding light on the creative collusions and collisions involved in bringing opera to the stage, the various, and varying, demands of the text and music, and the nature of its musical drama, Carter also shows how Italian opera has developed over the course of music history. Complete with synopses, cast lists, and suggested further reading for each work discussed, Understanding Italian Opera is a must-read for anyone with an interest in and love for this glorious art.
Author:
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780679893158
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Capture the excitement of a night at the opera with this stunning collection of eight favorite opera stories, each illustrated by a different artist.The Magic FluteAidaCarmenThe Cunning Little VixenTurandotCinderellaHansel & GretelThe Love for Three Oranges
Author: George Whitney Martin
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781574671681
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 724
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Book Description
Provides synopses of forty-seven operas, a history of the opera, and a glossary of operatic terms.
Author: Sir Denis Forman
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0307807827
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 980
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Book Description
“Delightful and anti-reverential”—Sunday Times (London) With an encyclopedic knowledge of opera and a delightful dash of irreverence, Sir Denis Forman throws open the world of opera—its structure, composers, conductors, and artists—in this hugely informative guide. A Night at the Opera dissects the eighty-three most popular operas recorded on compact disc, from Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur to Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. For each opera, Sir Denis details the plot and cast of characters, awarding stars to parts that are “worth looking out for,” “really good,” or, occasionally, “stunning.” He goes on to tell the history of each opera and its early reception. Finally, each work is graded from alpha to gamma (although the Ring cycle gets an “X”), and Sir Denis has no qualms about voicing his opinion: the first act of Fidelio is “a bit of a mess,” while the last scene of Don Giovanni “towers above the comic finales of Figaro and Così and whether or not [it] is Mozart's greatest opera, it is certainly his most powerful finale.” The guide also presents brief biographies of the great composers, conductors, and singers. A glossary of musical terms is included, as well as Operatica, or the essential elements of opera, from the proper place and style of the audience's applause (and boos) to the use of subtitles. A Night at the Opera is for connoisseurs and neophytes alike. It will entertain and inform, delight and (perhaps) infuriate, providing a subject for lively debate and ready reference for years to come.
