Ticket to the Opera: Discovering and Exploring 100 Famous Works, History, Lore, and Singers, With Recommended Recordings - Hardcover

Goulding, Phil G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 044990900X ISBN 13: 9780449909003

Publisher: Fawcett Books, 1996

Synopsis

Long cherished by music connoisseurs and high society, opera is in fact a wonderfully entertaining art form--a thrilling combination of magnificent music, high drama, gorgeous spectacle, and sheer theatrical magic. In Ticket to the Opera, Phil G. Goulding, the author of Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1000 Greatest Works, finally makes the magic and mystique of opera accessible to all.
Ticket to the Opera offers a complete operatic education, including history, definitions of key musical terms, opera lore and gossip, portraits of famous singers and the roles they immortalized, as well as pithy introductions to the greatest operas of Europe and America and their composers. The book's centerpiece is what Phil Goulding terms "the collection"--85 classics, among them Aida, The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen, and Madama Butterfly, that have been packing the world's opera houses for years. This meticulously researched book also includes a fascinating chapter on American opera from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess to Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach and a discussion of the gems of twentieth century opera featuring works like Leos Jan cek's The Cunning Little Vixen, Alban Berg's Lulu, and Serge Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges.
Witty and opinionated, Ticket to the Opera is an inspiring guide to the most sublime musical entertainment on earth. Whether you're a curious neophyte, a music lover interested in branching out, or an aficionado eager to compare notes with a brilliant fellow opera buff, you'll prize Ticket to the Opera as an essential volume in your music library.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Ticket to the Opera by Phil G. Goulding is a superb delight for the amateur opera lover. Goulding is witty and offers you a box seat to the lore and legends of the opera world. --- Louis Mendez, editorial.

From the Back Cover:

"Enlightening . . . Fun to browse in . . . Written with a deft touch."--Opera News

"A COMPREHENSIVE LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF OPERA . . . Goulding mixes succinct overviews of one hundred famous operas with sidebars full of interesting facts."--The Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Fawcett Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 044990900X
• ISBN 13: 9780449909003
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 689