
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,...

A History of Opera , the first new, full-length, single-volume history of opera for more than a generation, provokes in-depth discussions of many works by the greatest opera composers, from Monteverdi, Handel, and Mozart to Verdi and Wagner, to Strauss, Puccini, Berg, and Britten...

