A short history of opera / Donald Jay Grout & Hermine Weigel Williams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grout, Donald Jay.

Contributor:

Williams, Hermine Weigel.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Opera.

Physical Description:

xii, 1030 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

Fourth edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2003]

Summary:

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 that 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:

Part 1 Music and Drama to the End of the Sixteenth Century

1 The Lyric Theater of the Greeks 9

2 Medieval Dramatic Music 13

3 The Immediate Forerunners of Opera 21

Part 2 The Seventeenth Century

4 The Beginnings: Opera in Florence and Mantua 41

5 Other Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Court Operas, Including the First Comic Operas in Florence and Rome 60

6 Italian Opera in the Later Seventeenth Century in Italy 83

7 Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera in German-Speaking Lands 107

8 Early German Opera 121

9 Opera in France from Lully to Charpentier 132

10 Opera in England 147

Part 3 The Eighteenth Century

11 Masters of the Early Eighteenth Century 165

12 Opera Seria: General Characteristics 203

13 Opera Seria: The Composers 225

14 The Operas of Gluck 253

15 The Comic Opera of the Eighteenth Century 272

16 The Operas of Mozart and His Viennese Contemporaries 305

Part 4 The Nineteenth Century

17 The Turn of the Century 335

18 Grand Opera 353

19 Opera Comique, Operetta, and Lyric Opera 369

20 Italian Opera of the Primo Ottocento: Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Their Contemporaries 383

21 The Romantic Opera in Germany 417

22 The Operas of Wagner 436

23 The Later Nineteenth Century: France, Italy, Germany, and Austria 473

Part 5 Other National Traditions of Opera from the Seventeenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries

24 National Traditions of Opera 507

Part 6 The Twentieth Century

25 Introduction / Opera in France and Italy 577

26 Opera in the German-Speaking Countries 611

27 National Opera in Russia and Neighboring Countries; Central and Eastern Europe; Greece and Turkey; the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland; Spain, Portugal, and Latin America 662

28 Opera in the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand 708

29 Opera in the United States 729

Appendix Chinese Opera (Xiqu) 787.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [797]-896) and index.

ISBN:

0231119585

OCLC:

51177429