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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grout, Donald Jay.

Contributor:

Williams, Hermine Weigel.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Opera.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1049 pages)

Edition:

4th ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, c2003.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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, which 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:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface to the Fourth Edition

Introduction

Part 1. Musk and Drama to the End of the Sixteenth Century

Chapter 1. The Lyric Theater of the Greeks

Chapter 2. Medieval Dramatic Music

Chapter 3. The Immediate Forerunners of Opera

Part 2. The Seventeenth Century

Chapter 4. The Beginnings: Opera in Florence and Mantua

Chapter 5. Other Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Court Operas; Including the first Comic Operas in Florence and Rome

Chapter 6. Italian Opera in the Later Seventeenth Century in Italy

Chapter 7. Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera in German-Speaking Lands

Chapter 8. Early German Opera

Chapter 9. Opera in France from Lully to Charpentier

Chapter 10. Opera in England

Part 3. The Eighteenth Century

Chapter 11. Masters of the Early Eighteenth Century

Chapter 12. Opera Send: General Characteristics

Chapter 13. Opera Seria: The Composers

Chapter 14. The Operas of Gluck

Chapter 15. The Comic Opera of the Eighteenth Century

Chapter 16. The Operas of Mozart and His Viennese Contemporaries

Part 4. The Nineteenth Century

Chapter 17. The Turn of the Century

Chapter 18. Grand Opera

Chapter 19. Opéra Comique, Operetta, and Lyric Opera

Chapter 20. Italian Opera of the Primo Ottocento: Rossini, Donizetti! Verdi! and Their Contemporaries

Chapter 21. The Romantic Opera in Germany

Chapter 22. The Operas of Wagner

Chapter 23. The Later Nineteenth Century: France! Italy! Germany! and Austria

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

Chapter 24. National Traditions of Opera

Part 6. The Twentieth Century

Chapter 25. Introduction / Opera in France and Italy

Chapter 26. Opera in the German-Speaking Countries

Chapter 27. National Opera in Russia and Neighboring Countries Central and Eastern Europe Greece and Turkey the Netherlands! Denmark! Sweden, and England Spain, Portugal, and Latin America

Chapter 28. Opera in the British Isles! Canada! Australia! and New Zealand

Chapter 29. Opera in the United States

Appendix

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Sources and Translations of Musical Examples

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

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

ISBN:

9786613627919

9781280598081

1280598085

9780231507721

0231507720

OCLC:

828303853