Operas Every Child Should Know

by Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

Found in this work are descriptions of the text and music of some of the most famous masterpieces. The opera is never more enjoyed than by a music lover who is incapable of criticism from lack of musical knowledge: music being first and last an emotional art; and as our emotions are refined it requires compositions of a more and more elevated character to appeal to them. The history of opera should be known and composers classified, just as it is desirable to know and to classify authors, painters, sculptors and actors. Contents: Balfe: The Bohemian Girl; Beethoven: Fidelio; Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust; Bizet: Carmen; DeKoven: Robin Hood; Flotow: Martha; Humperdinck: Hansel land Gretel; Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana; Meyerbeer: The Prophet; Mozart: The Magic Flute; Sullivan: Pinafore; Verdi: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Aida; Wagner: The Nibelung Ring, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Lohengrin.

Genres: Music

472 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 2002

About the author

Dolores Bacon was an American writer, reporter, actress, and playwright. She is best known as an author of children's books and for her work as a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.

Reviews

[Duckpondwithoutducks]

It is interesting that the title of this book is "Operas Every Child Should Know," as at this time many adults don't even know anything about opera. It is one of the differences between the time that the book was first published, in 1911, and today, just over 100 years later.

The operas that are discussed are:
Balfe: The Bohemian Girl
Beethoven: Fidelio
Berlioz: The Damnation Of Faust
Bizet: Carmen
DeKoven: Robin Hood
Flotow: Martha
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana
Meyerbeer: The Prophet
Mozart: The Magic Flute
Sullivan: Pinafore
Verdi: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Aida
Wagner: The Nibelung Ring, The Mastersingers Of Nuremberg, Lohengrin

If a similar list was made today, of must-see operas, it would probably not include the Balfe, DeKoven and Meyerbeer, and would definitely have more Puccini.

The plot summaries of the operas are a little too detailed, and include too much of the actual dialogue, which makes the summaries somewhat hard to follow.