Who's Who in Opera: A Guide to Opera Characters (Oxford Quick Reference) - Softcover

Bourne, Joyce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019280054X ISBN 13: 9780192800541

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Here is a marvelous guide to over 2,500 operatic characters, with synopses of over 250 major works. Each entry provides a full description of the role, indicates its vocal category, and discusses who first created the part and other notable performers.
Best of all, the volume boasts twenty-five feature articles--illustrated with photographs--by many well-known personalities who themselves constitute a who's who of opera. Readers will find Placido Domingo writing on the character of Otello, perhaps his greatest role. Bryn Terfel writes on Leporello, Janet Baker on Mary Stuart, Thomas Hampson on Posa, and Theodore Uppman on Billy Budd. Other contributors include Andrew Porter, Sena Junnac, Philip Langridge, Jonathan Miller, Sir Charles MacKerras, and Marie McLaughlin. These special articles reveal much about the creative process behind some of the most famous performances in opera history. From Arabella to Wozzeck, here is a wealth of information on the main characters in the repertoire of both opera and operetta. Both informative and absorbing, it is a must for all opera lovers.

About this title

About the Author

Joyce Bourne is the Associate Editor of The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music.

From Booklist

Compiled by the associate editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Music (Oxford, 1984), this biographical dictionary of characters also contains brief plot synopses.

Coverage is from Monteverdi to the present and includes more than 2,500 characters from 279 major works. Each entry is arranged alphabetically by character name and places the character in the context of the plot. The creator of the role is noted, with the year of first performance. Minor characters are treated in a sentence or two, while entries for major characters may cover several pages. In addition to their main entry, 27 characters, including Brunnhilde (from Wagner's The Ring), Leporello (from Mozart's Don Giovanni), and Violetta (from Verdi's La Traviata), are the subjects of essays by noted interpreters of the role, directors, or critics. Each of the special essays is accompanied by a murky black-and-white photograph of a performer in appropriate costume, but the poor quality of the illustrations makes them of little value.

There are two appendixes. The first provides brief biographies of 26 of the authors of the special essays, and the second is an index of composers, with a list of their operas and characters that are entered in the main work.

This clearly written and arranged volume will be a useful information source in any library with readers interested in opera.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 019280054X
• ISBN 13: 9780192800541
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 476
• Editor: Kennedy Michael