The Young Person's Guide to the Opera

by Anita Ganeri

Opera--as popular today as ever--comes to life in this elegant introduction. Through conversational text and fascinating anecdotes, young readers learn about the talented people and technical wizardry behind opera's lavish performances. Readers get an inside look at great opera companies, including the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the San Diego Opera. The rich story lines of many operas also grace these pages, along with lively tales about the composers and singers who have made them so popular.

The accompanying CD features musical excerpts from such famous operas as Mozart's The Magic Flute, Rossini's The Barber of Seville, and Puccini's Madama Butterfly. These beautiful selections give themselves the stirring music for which opera is renowned.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

64 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 2001

About the author

Anita Ganeri is a highly experienced author of children’s information books, specialising in religion, India/Asia, multiculturalism, geography, biography and natural history. She became a freelance writer after working at Walker Books (as foreign rights manager) and Usborne Publishing (as an editor). Since then, she has written over 300 titles, including the best-selling Horrible Geography series for Scholastic. The series won the Geographical Association Silver Award in 1999 and was cited as being ‘an innovation that all geographers will applaud’. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society where she conducts most of her research for the books.

Reviews

[Julie Capell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a good introduction to opera for any tween with an interest in classical music and singing.