The Rough Guide to Opera

by Matthew Boyden

INTRODUCTION The combination of music and drama is a thrillingly potent mix, but opera remains off-putting for too many people. Partly this is due to the social exclusivity cultivated by many opera houses, especially in the English-speaking world, but the sheer diversity of the music is also a factor. Thousands of operas have been written since Monteverdi and his colleagues pioneered the genre some four hundred years ago, and though many of these are no longer performed the repertoire can still seem daunting. Opera-house schedules place late-Renaissance pageants alongside Italian melodramas or modern psychodramas, and the situation is even more perplexing when you look at the CD catalogue, where you’ll find more than two hundred complete recordings of Verdi’s operas, for example, and around thirty of La traviata alone. Whether you’re new to opera or are already familiar with many of its masterpieces, THE ROUGH GUIDE TO OPERA is the essential guide through this mass of music, providing concise biographies of all the significant composers, incisive discussions of their major works, and detailed surveys of the recordings. The entire history of opera is covered here, from its beginnings in late-Renaissance Italy to the latest exciting work from contemporary names such as John Adams and Judith Weir. Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and all the other greats are discussed in depth, as are lesser-known figures from Auber to Zimmerman. Of course, a completely comprehensive guide to opera, even one that restricted itself to opera on CD, would be impossibly unwieldy, so we’ve excluded some figures we regard as being peripheral, and we’ve been selective with the output of many composers, concentrating on what we think are the key operas. Gaetano Donizetti, for example, wrote more than seventy operas, but we’ve concentrated on the ones you’re likeliest to encounter either on disc or on stage. Similarly, we pick up Strauss’s career with Salome, because it’s this opera, his third, that marks the beginning of the work that makes him one of the most successful opera composers of the first half of the twentieth century. To this tally of the top rank we’ve added some composers who have been unfairly neglected, such as Zemlinsky, Busoni and Montemezzi, some operas that should be better known, such as Cavalli’s La Calisto, plus a few masterpieces from the world of operetta, the half-sister of opera. When it comes to CDs the situation requires far greater selectivity, for the CD era has brought with it a welter of new opera releases – though the bulk of these are reissues of old recordings, with so-called "historic" items (which generally means pre-stereo) now being something of a boom area. There are two reasons for this glut of reprocessed music. In the first place, with classical music rarely shifting units except when an event like the "Three Tenors" circus catches the attention of the TV cameras, few record companies can regularly afford to make a new studio recording of an opera. Most new opera sets are taped at a live performance and then digitally tidied up – a far cheaper process than getting soloists, orchestra and conductor into the studios for a long haul. The economics of opera are also relevant to the second point, which is that the older recordings are often better. More than ever before, opera is a celebrity business, and whenever a label does invest in a! studio session, it’s obliged to reduce the risk by building the set round stars who might be appearing in London one night, Paris the next, then turning up in a New York studio for a few days to record something with people they have never met before. Sometimes this system produces exciting results, but often it doesn’t, and it’s increasingly rare to find new recordings that have the sense of cohesion that was commonplace when record labels used to sign up an entire company to make recordings with a core cast and a single conductor. And there’s one other factor to take into account – the dearth of great singers for some types of opera. In the 1950s there were plenty of tenors capable of producing a memorable Otello; since the 1970s one singer has had a virtual monopoly of the role – Plácido Domingo. The same problem affects Wagner listen to a Ring cycle recorded back in the 1960s and you’ll hear amazingly strong and passionate performances right through the cast; pick up a recent set, and you’ll find weaknesses even in the major parts. However, the situation isn’t as grim as some fogeyish critics like to make out. There are some fabulous young singers on the circuit, such as Angela Gheorghiu, Cecilia Bartoli, Juan Diego Floréz and Bryn Terfel, while conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner and Daniel Barenboim have shown time and again that every generation can find something fresh in the music that has lasted. On top of that, an upsurge of interest in early opera has been fuelled by ear-opening interpretations from a rising number of specialist groups...

Genres: Music, Reference, Nonfiction, Art

735 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

Reviews

[Elena Sala · Rating 4 out of 5]

OPERA. THE ROUGH GUIDE (1999) is a great companion and introduction for readers new to opera. The book is structured chronologically: from the birth of opera to post World War II composers. Each chapter begins with an introduction of the period, then individual composers are introduced. Biographical information, context and their major works are discussed; then each of their major works is featured in some detail. Finally, a set of CD recommendations, ranked in order of preference is included. There is also a directory of singers and conductors featuring who is the best for a particular piece of music.

Two more recent editions of this guide have been published. I haven't perused them so I can't say anything about them. This guide has been my go-to companion for many years and although not every single composer is featured in it, the most important ones do make an appearance. It is a more than adequate guide for people new to opera.

[Daniel Kushner]

This book is quite comprehensive, and great if you need quick summaries and references. I don't agree with all the CD reviews and assessments of certain singers (calling Leo Nucci nothing more than a workhorse: that's ridiculous), they don't cover every opera, including interesting rarities by Puccini and others. Now there's a newer edition as well.

However, overall, you can't ask for a much better book if you want to delve into all things opera. No matter what edition you get, tap into this resource.

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed resource book on opera stories and history.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summary of the mainstream operatic works, major artists and the best recordings.

[Jake Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this volume to be highly informative- the next edition is supposed to have a lot more information on a greater amount of opera and provide expanded commentary. Hope it gets published soon.

[David]

Grand passions. I regret nothing.