Michael White - The Collins Guide To Opera And Operetta

The Bassarids

Elegy for Young Lovers

Paul Hindemith

Mathis der Maler

Engelbert Humperdinck

Hänsel und Gretel

Leoš Janáček

The Cunning Little Vixen

The Excursions of Mr Brouček

From the House of the Dead

Jenůfa

Kátya Kabanová

The Makropulos Case

Oliver Knussen

Where the Wild Things Are

Erich Korngold

Die Tote Stadt

Franz Lehár

Die Lustige Witwe

Ruggero Leoncavallo

I Pagliacci

Heinrich August Marschner

Der Vampyr

Pietro Mascagni

Cavalleria Rusticana

Jules Massenet

Manon

Werther

Gian Carlo Menotti

Amahl and the Night Visitors

The Consul

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Les Huguenots

Claudio Monteverdi

La Favola d’Orfeo

L’lncoronazione di Poppea

Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

La Clemenza di Tito

Cosí fan Tutte

Don Giovanni

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Idomeneo

Le Nozze di Figaro

Die Zauberflöte

Modest Musorgsky

Boris Godunov

Khovanshchina

Otto Nicolai

Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor

Carl Nielsen

Maskarade

Jacques Offenbach

La Belle Hélène

Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Orphée aux Enfers

La Vie Parisienne

Francis Poulenc

Les Dialogues des Carmélites

La Voix Humaine

Sergei Prokofiev

The Fiery Angel

The Love for Three Oranges

War and Peace

Giacomo Puccini

La Bohème

La Fanciulla del West

Madama Butterfly

Manon Lescaut

Tosca

Il Trittico

Il Tabarro

Suor Angelica

Gianni Schicchi

Turandot

Henry Purcell

Dido and Aeneas

The Fairy Queen

King Arthur

Maurice Ravel

L’Enfant et les Sortilèges

L’Heure Espagnole

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

The Golden Cockerel

The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh

Gioacchino Rossini

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

La Cenerentola

Guillaume Tell

L’ltaliana in Algeri

Camille Saint-Saëns

Samson et Dalila

Aulis Sallinen

The Red Line

Arnold Schoenberg

Moses und Aron

Dmitri Shostakovich

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Bedřich Smetana

The Bartered Bride

Johann Strauss II

Die Fledermaus

Der Zigeunerbaron

Richard Strauss

Arabella

Ariadne auf Naxos

Capriccio

Elektra

Intermezzo

Der Rosenkavalier

Salome

Igor Stravinsky

Oedipus Rex

The Rake’s Progress

Arthur Sullivan

The Gondoliers

HMS Pinafore

Iolanthe

The Mikado

Patience

The Pirates of Penzance

The Yeoman of the Guard

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Eugene Onegin

The Queen of Spades

Michael Tippett

King Priam

The Knot Garden

The Midsummer Marriage

Giuseppe Verdi

Aida

Un Ballo in Maschera

Don Carlos

Falstaff

La Forza del Destino

Macbeth

Nabucco

Otello

Rigoletto

Simon Boccanegra

La Traviata

Il Trovatore

Richard Wagner

Der Fliegende Holländer

Lohengrin

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Parsifal

Der Ring des Nibelungen

Das Rheingold

Die Walküre

Siegfried

Götterdämmerung

Tannhäuser

Tristan und Isolde

William Walton

Troilus and Cressida

Carl Maria von Weber

Der Freischütz

Kurt Weill

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny

Die Dreigroschenoper

Street Scene

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Die Soldaten

Glossary

About the Publisher

How to Use this Ebook

Over 180 operas and operettas, the major works of more than 70 composers, are covered in the Collins Guide to Opera and Operetta, an invaluable guide to this fascinating but sometimes misunderstood artform.

The main body of the book is arranged alphabetically by composer, starting with Adams and continuing through to Zimmermann, taking in the likes of Britten, Mozart, Puccini, Strauss (Johann II and Richard), Sullivan, Verdi and Wagner along the way.

The section for each composer begins with a list of their major operatic works arranged in chronological order by year of composition. Those operas set in bold type are featured in detail on the pages within each composer section. Biographical details and information on other non-operatic works set the operas in context.

The featured operas for each composer are arranged in alphabetical order. Within the entry for each opera the presentation is exactly the same: Form, Composer, Libretto, First Performance, Principal Characters, Synopsis of the Plot, Music and Background, Highlights and Recommended Recording. The vast majority of the operas also feature an entertaining Did You Know? box including anecdotes and diverting background information.

An overview of the history and development of opera and operetta, and a glossary of musical terms round out this indispensable reference source for opera devotees and newcomers alike.

Introduction

FLORENTINE BEGINNINGS

The four-hundred-year history of opera as we know it is based on a mistake. Or at least, a mistaken assumption, made in the late 16th century by a group of Florentine intelligentsia, who were minded to re-create what they believed to be ancient classical drama. Their guide was Aristotle who, in the 4th century BC, had written about theatre and music as though such things were synonymous. Drama, said Aristotle, was the imitation of life made pleasurable by ornament and melody; and armed with this information, the Renaissance Florentines supposed that ancient drama must have been completely sung.