Opera: A Crash Course

Is the word opera always preceded by the word soap to you? Have you an uneasy suspicion that La Donna e Mobile does not really mean ‘my girl’s got a cellphone’? If you are a bathroom Meistersinger with plenty of aria action but no recitative to speak of, Opera – A Crash Course is for you.

* absolutely no previous musical knowledge required
* tortuous plots decoded
* brief lives and great works of all the major composers
* operatic language translated
* directory of divas and maestros
* crib sheet of genres

Opera - A Crash Course is designed to to help you penetrate the miasma of social snobbery that envelops opera everywhere except Italy, where it was born and where every postino can rip an aria off his chest just like Pavarotti. It's refreshingly composed history, with a counterpoint of helpful leitmotivs (plot slots, biographies, opera-speak), and a timeline to connect the absurd, passionate, dramtic virtual world of opera with the dull, old reality planet the rest of us live on. Read this and you will never again wonder what Cosi fan Tutte actually means, how many Nibelungen there are in the Ring, or why a 17-stone consumptive dying at 100 decibels can bring a sob to the throat. And you will find out how to comport yourself in an Opera House.
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Stephen Pettitt is a trained music buff who writes for heavyweight British broadsheets such as the Sunday Times and the Financial Times and magazines including Opera and Gramophone. He broadcasts frequently on radio and has sat in judgement on many musical competitions as well as writing a book on Handel for beginners. From Monteverdi to Maxwell Davies, he is your man. Attenzione.