Opera

This program is read by the author, and includes excerpts from Richard Wagner's musical compositions throughout. A New York Times Notable Books of 2020 Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals...

Blunt, irreverent, and at times delightfully subversive, Opera Wars spotlights opera’s colorful and sometimes warring personalities, increasingly fierce controversies over content, and the battles being waged for its economic future—a “colorful, witty look behind the velvet curtain”...

From the New York Times’s former chief classical music critic, a tribute to one of the great singers of modern times and a national treasure who broke racial barriers The night before Marian Anderson performed her historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial, she called her manager with grave...

Part cultural history, part biography, this is the fascinating story of Richard Wagner's life, influences, gift for storytelling, and artistic revolution, culminating in his dramatic journey to write The Ring Cycle. The Ring Cycle is one of the most epic and compelling operas of the nineteenth...

Opera, said Moliére, is the most expensive noise known to man. From its beginnings in the 16th Century, through to today when there are as many musical styles as there are composers....

La Traviata owes its enduring popularity to a superb story of young love and fatal sacrifice, set to music by Italy’s master melodist at the peak of his powers....

This unique book brings together George Bernard Shaw's witty and iconoclastic take on Wagner's masterwork, The Ring of the Nibelungen, with the composer's own essay....

"Wagner's Ring Motifs" is aimed in the first instance at listeners new to the Ring and is intended to convey the fascination of Wagner's music...

For anyone who has been intimidated, overwhelmed, or just plain confused by what they think opera is, Who’s Afraid of Opera? offers a lively, easy-to-follow guide to what author Michael Walsh describes as “the greatest art form yet invented by humankind.” From opera’s origins in...

A car mechanic turned internationally acclaimed opera star, Alfie Boe has taken Broadway by storm, conquered the West End and has won the hearts of the nation. The first official bad boy of opera, this is the story of his life - the ups and the downs, from finding fame to losing his father - and...

In the world of opera, no figure in modern times loomed larger than the late Luciano Pavarotti, especially in his triumphant collaborations with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras as the Three Tenors. Pavarotti captured the imagination of audiences around the world. In this memoir, the...

Of all the trademarks of Venice - and there are many, from the gilded Basilica of San Marco to the melancholy Bridge of Sighs - none is more ubiquitous than the gondola. The internationally acclaimed "American with the Venetian heart," Donna Leon, tells its fascinating story (The Washington...

In Stand Up Straight and Sing!, Jessye Norman recalls in rich detail the strong women who were her role models, from her ancestors to family friends, relatives, and teachers. She hails the importance of her parents in her early learning and experiences in the arts. And she describes coming...

The true confessions of a working opera composer: an exhilarating story of "a life that comes out of chaos".

Madama Butterfly runs the gamut of operatic emotions....

The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air). "One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time." —Pamela Paul, New York Times...

Tosca is Puccini at the peak of his theatrical power....

Così Fan Tutte contains some of Mozart’s most sublime music....

This is the story of the 36-year-old business relationship between Luciano Pavarotti and his manager, Herbert Breslin, during which Breslin guided what he calls, justifiably, “the greatest career in classical music”. During that career, Breslin moved Pavarotti out of the opera house and onto...

A revelatory history of the operatic masterpiece that both made and destroyed Rouben Mamoulian, its director and unsung hero....

The Birth of an Opera offers illuminating insight into how operas are written and the personalities, incidents, and musical circumstances that have shaped their composition....

New opera enthusiasts and seasoned aficionados alike will delight in Dale Harris' witty and insightful analyses of La Traviata, Carmen, The Magic Flute, and La Boheme....

In How to Get High: The Key to Escaping Vocal Prison and Making Singing High Notes Easy Again, Joshua Dennis goes through his tried and true method of vocal production that he learned from Master Teacher W. Stephen Smith....

Tempesta's Dream is the story of an aspiring opera singer coming of age in Milan; a tender and moving love story; a testament to the bonds of friendship....

Opium dreams, nodding geishas, feisty harem slavegirls, seductive temple dancers. . . .Performances on the great European stages often depicted "...