The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Opera

Spanish tenor Placido Domingo (my favorite tenor) begins this resourceful guide with an interesting look at opera in America. Every major city (New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago) have baseball stadiums and an opera house. Both events, baseball games and opera, are now American pasttimes. This book provides a plethora of information regarding the history of opera and how it was made. It was the last creation of the Italian Renaissance. A group of theatre-loving aristocrats set ancient Greek dramas to music and song and the opera was born. George Frederick Handel, classical composer and opera composer was the leading opera composer of this time. His "Julius Caesar" was originally in Italian but when it was "revived" in the 50's and 60's, most Americans heard it sung in English, contrary to what one viewer said, soprano Beverly Sills and bass Norman Treigle put together their efforts into establishing Baroque opera in America and traditionally, these rare Baroque operas were first presented in English and later in Italian. The book then goes on to the highlights of Classical Opera of the 1700's. Besides such obscure names as Salieri, there was the more famous and beloved Mozart, whose operas are regarded as the best in the business- Le Nozze Di Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute being the most popular Threesome of operas. The book then goes into Bel Canto Opera- the lyric and dramatic operas of Bellini and Donizetti to the comic but valuable operas of Rossini. Romantic Opera composers- such as Berlioz, whose Les Troyens and Damnation Of Faust are still presented today, to Verdi's masterpieces- Trovatore, La Traviata, Nabucco, Aida, Macbeth, Othello, and Wagner (Tristan and Isolde, Ring of the Nibelung) and of course the ever popular Italian opera king, Puccini (La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot).

In addition to tempting recordings of artistic value performed by great singers of at least as far back as pre- World War II Era, this book has all the great singers of past and present. Sopranos- Jenny Lind, Lily Pons, Maria Callas, Marian Anderson, Joan Sutherland, Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, Montserrat Caballe, Victoria De Los Angeles, Beverly Sills, Kathleen Battle, Jessie Norman, Grace Bumbry - and tenors- Enrico Caruso, Franco Corelli, Carlo Bergonzi, Nicolai Gedda, Jon Vickers, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavoratti. Believe it or not, there is more to tenors than just the much popularized "Three Tenors". Thanks to this book Americans will look at opera in a whole new light.


Unreliable   May 19, 2002
 5 out of 15 found this review helpful

Question the analytical ability of an author who, in recommending the Sills recording of "Julius Caesar," thinks that the Italian text is sung in English. More to the point, ignore a critic who clearly doesn't listen to the recordings he evaluates.