xii, 1030 pages : 25 cm

"When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic in the field. Now, more than five decades later, this thoroughly revised and expanded fourth edition informs and entertains opera lovers just as its predecessors have."

"The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. After surveying anticipations of the operatic form in the lyric theater of the Greeks, medieval dramatic music, and other forerunners, the book reveals the genre's beginnings in the seventeenth century and follows its progress to the present day."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 797-896) and index

Introduction -- The lyric theater of the Greeks -- Medieval dramatic music -- The immediate forerunners of opera -- The beginnings : opera in Florence and Mantua -- Other early seventeenth-century Italian court operas, including the first comic operas in Florence and Rome -- Italian opera in the later seventeenth century in Italy -- Seventeenth-century Italian opera in German-speaking lands -- Early German opera -- Opera in France from Lully to Charpentier -- Opera in England -- Masters of the early eighteenth century -- Opera seria : general characteristics -- Opera seria : the composers -- The operas of Gluck -- The comic opera of the eighteenth century -- The operas of Mozart and his Viennese contemporaries -- The turn of the [nineteenth] century -- Grand opera -- Opéra comique, operetta, and lyric opera -- Italian opera of the primo ottacento : Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and their contemporaries -- The romantic opera in Germany -- The operas of Wagner -- The later nineteenth century : France, Italy, Germany, and Austria -- National traditions of opera -- Introduction [to opera of the twentieth century] ; Opera in France and Italy -- Opera in the German-speaking countries -- National opera in Russia and neighboring countries; central and eastern Europe; Greece and Turkey; the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland; Spain, Portugal, and Latin America -- Opera in the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand -- Opera in the United States -- Appendix : Chinese opera (Xiqu)

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