Opera: An Informal Guide

by Stephen M. Stroff

An Informal Guide offers an entertaining, informative, and sometimes startling tour of the glamorous yet demanding world where music and theater combine - a world
In the earliest days of opera, when female roles were sung by male castrati, there was a thriving cottage industry in "accidents" to produce the required number of male singers with a female vocal range.
Fat, homely, angelic-voiced contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861-1936) was just sitting down to a sumptuous meal of roast turkey, stuffing, peas, yams, and cranberry sauce when the great tenor Enrico Caruso dropped by. "Tina!" he yelled in amazement. "Surely you're not going to eat all that alone!" "Uff course not," she replied. "I am having it mit gravy, und dumplings, und bread!"
Baroque vocalists so embellished their solos in performance that the composers themselves often failed to recognize their own works.
With reviews of the styles, composers, key performers, and works of the Baroque, Classic, Romantic, and Modern periods.

216 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993