Enchantment of the Opera: 10 Classic Books on Its Rich Legacy
Classic Essays, Libretti, and Criticism on European Music Drama and Lyric TheatreBy Gustav Kobbé, George P. Upton, Charles Annesley, Millicent Schwab Bender, Henry Edward Krehbiel, Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa, Richard Wagner
Length76h 43m
About this audiobook
Enchantment of the Opera: 10 Classic Books on Its Rich Legacy gathers landmark writings that illuminate opera as music, drama, spectacle, and cultural institution. Spanning historical survey, critical commentary, librettistic craft, and interpretive analysis, the volume traces the art form from its European foundations to the enduring repertory of the nineteenth century. Its range is especially valuable: broad guides to composers and works stand beside reflections shaped by the theatrical imagination, while treatments of Wagnerian music drama and Italian operatic practice reveal competing ideals of voice, orchestra, narrative, and stage. The contributors represent influential critics, historians, translators, librettists, and composers whose work helped define anglophone and continental understanding of opera. Gustav Kobbé, George P. Upton, Charles Annesley, Millicent Schwab Bender, and Henry Edward Krehbiel bring documentary knowledge and critical discernment to operatic history; Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa embody the collaborative labor of the libretto; and Richard Wagner supplies a formative theoretical and creative presence. Together, these voices situate opera within Romanticism, realism, nationalism, and the emergence of modern musical criticism. Recommended for students, listeners, and theatre historians, this anthology offers an unusually capacious entry into opera's legacy. Readers will encounter diverse methods of reading and hearing the genre, gain historical perspective on canonical works, and discover a productive dialogue between criticism, composition, and performance.
Audiobook details
GenreOther, Literary Classics
Length76 hrs 43 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateMar 4, 2025
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Complete Opera Book
2The Complete Opera Book
3FOREWORD
4The Complete Opera Book
5Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
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6Ludwig van Beethoven
7Why Some Operas are Rarely Given
8From Weber to Wagner
9Richard Wagner (1813-1883) (pt. 1)
10Richard Wagner (1813-1883) (pt. 2)
11Richard Wagner (1813-1883) (pt. 3)
12Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868)
13Vincenzo Bellini (1802-1835)
14Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
15Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) (pt. 1)
16Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) (pt. 2)
17Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886)
18Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
19Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
20Charles François Gounod (1818-1893)
21Ambroise Thomas
22Italian Opera Since Verdi
23Giacomo Puccini (1858-)
24Riccardo Zandonai
25Italo Montemezzi
26Modern Italian Opera
27Modern German and Bohemian Opera
28Richard Strauss
29Russian Opera
30American Opera
31Spanish Opera
32Transcriber’s Errata List
33The Standard Operas: Their Plots, Their Music, and Their Composers
34The Standard Operas: Their Plots, Their Music, and Their Composers (12th edition)
35PREFACE.
36BIZET.
37GLUCK.
38MEYERBEER.
39ROSSINI.
40WAGNER.
41WALLACE.
42APPENDIX.
43The Standard Operaglass
44The Standard Operaglass
45Photograph of Karl Scheidemantel. Hans Sachs.
46CONTAINING THE DETAILED PLOTS OF
47ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE CELEBRATED OPERAS (pt. 1)
48ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE CELEBRATED OPERAS (pt. 2)
49ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE CELEBRATED OPERAS (pt. 3)
50ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE CELEBRATED OPERAS (pt. 4)
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