The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera

The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera
Author: Roger Parker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 618
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780192854452

A historical survey of opera, from its beginnings in Florence 400 years ago, up to opera in the 1990s.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre

The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre
Author: John Russell Brown
Publisher: Oxford Illustrated History
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2001
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780192854421

A scholarly look at 4,500 years of theater, beginning with its Greek origins and concluding with a study of theater since 1970.

The Oxford Handbook of Opera

The Oxford Handbook of Opera
Author: Helen M. Greenwald
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
Total Pages: 1217
Release: 2014
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0195335538

Fifty of the world's most respected scholars cast opera as a fluid entity that continuously reinvents itself in a reflection of its patrons, audience, and creators.

A History of Opera

A History of Opera
Author: Carolyn Abbate
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 648
Release: 2015-09-08
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0393089533

“The best single volume ever written on the subject, such is its range, authority, and readability.”—Times Literary Supplement Why has opera transfixed and fascinated audiences for centuries? Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker answer this question in their “effervescent, witty” (Die Welt, Germany) retelling of the history of opera, examining its development, the musical and dramatic means by which it communicates, and its role in society. Now with an expanded examination of opera as an institution in the twenty-first century, this “lucid and sweeping” (Boston Globe) narrative explores the tensions that have sustained opera over four hundred years: between words and music, character and singer, inattention and absorption. Abbate and Parker argue that, though the genre’s most popular and enduring works were almost all written in a distant European past, opera continues to change the viewer— physically, emotionally, intellectually—with its enduring power.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the World

The Oxford Illustrated History of the World
Author: Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2019-01-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191067199

Imagine the planet, as if from an immense distance of time and space, as a galactic observer might see it—with the kind of objectivity that we, who are enmeshed in our history, can ́t attain. The Oxford Illustrated History of the World encompasses the whole span of human history. It brings together some of the world's leading historians, under the expert guidance of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, to tell the 200,000-year story of our world, from the emergence of homo sapiens through to the twenty-first century: the environmental convulsions; the interplay of ideas (good and bad); the cultural phases and exchanges; the collisions and collaborations in politics; the successions of states and empires; the unlocking of energy; the evolutions of economies; the contacts, conflicts, and contagions that have all contributed to making the world we now inhabit.

Puccini

Puccini
Author: Michele Girardi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 558
Release: 2000-08-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780226297576

Puccini's operas are among the most popular and widely performed in the world, yet few books have examined his body of work from an analytical perspective. This volume remedies that lack in lively prose accessible to scholars and opera enthusiasts alike.

Middle English Literature

Middle English Literature
Author: Christopher Cannon
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2008-04-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0745624413

This book provides a boldly original account of Middle English literature from the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the sixteenth century. It argues that these centuries are, in fundamental ways, the momentous period in our literary history, for they are the long moment in which the category of literature itself emerged as English writing began to insist, for the first time, that it floated free of any social reality or function. This book also charts the complex mechanisms by which English writing acquired this power in a series of linked close readings of both canonical and more obscure texts. It encloses those readings in five compelling accounts of much broader cultural areas, describing, in particular, the productive relationship of Middle English writing to medieval technology, insurgency, statecraft and cultural place, concluding with an in depth account of the particular arguments, emphases and techniques English writers used to claim a wholly new jurisdiction for their work. Both this history and its readings are everywhere informed by the most exciting developments in recent Middle English scholarship as well as literary and cultural theory. It serves as an introduction to all these areas as well as a contribution, in its own right, to each of them.

The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages
Author: Barbara A. Hanawalt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 1998
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0195103599

Beginning with the merger of Roman, Christian, and Germanic cultures, this history of the Middle Ages covers a vast array of subjects, including Byzantium and the Islamic world, feudalism, the Crusades, the Magna Carta, and much more. Author Barbara A. Hanawalt uses a lively and anecdotal writing style to breathe life into earlier times. 35 color and 120 b & w illustrations. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Grove Book of Opera Singers

The Grove Book of Opera Singers
Author: Laura Williams Macy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0195337654

Covering over 1500 singers from the birth of opera to the present day, this marvelous volume will be an essential resource for all serious opera lovers and an indispensable companion to the enormously successful Grove Book of Operas. The most comprehensive guide to opera singers ever produced, this volume offers an alphabetically arranged collection of authoritative biographies that range from Marion Anderson (the first African American to perform at the Met) to Benedict Zak (the classical tenor and close friend and colleague of Mozart). Readers will find fascinating articles on such opera stars as Maria Callas and Enrico Caruso, Ezio Pinza and Fyodor Chaliapin, Lotte Lehmann and Jenny Lind, Lily Pons and Luciano Pavarotti. The profiles offer basic information such as birth date, vocal style, first debut, most memorable roles, and much more. But these articles often go well beyond basic biographical information to offer colorful portraits of the singer's personality and vocal style, plus astute evaluations of their place in operatic history and many other intriguing observations. Many entries also include suggestions for further reading, so that anyone interested in a particular performer can explore their life and career in more depth. In addition, there are indexes of singers by voice type and by opera role premiers. The articles are mostly drawn from the acclaimed Grove Music Online and have been fully revised, and the book is further supplemented by more than 40 specially commissioned articles on contemporary singers. A superb new guide from the first name in opera reference, The Grove Book of Opera Singers is a lively and authoritative work, beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white pictures. It is an essential volume--and the perfect gift--for opera lovers everywhere.

Opera 101

Opera 101
Author: Fred Plotkin
Publisher: Hyperion
Total Pages: 520
Release: 1994-12
Genre: Music
ISBN:

Written by an opera insider and featuring an introduction by Placido Domingo, here is a thorough, friendly, and truly complete guide to learning how to love and appreciate the opera. After a brief history of opera, the book includes a guide to operatic terms, a minute-by-minute listener's guide to 11 central works, a list of recommended books and recordings and much more.