More Great Operas
A Guide to 25 More of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences – volume 2
In volume 2, Michael Steen, author of the acclaimed The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, provides another compendium in his ebook series The Great Opera Companion: Short Guides to a Hundred Best Operas.
Much more than a standard reference book, this ranges across influential operas from Monteverdi’s Poppea, Gluck’s Orfeo and Weber’s Freischütz via Debussy’s mysterious and symbolist Pelléas et Mélisande, to Britten’s Billy Budd and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Here are Short Guides to Donizetti’s comic operas La Fille du Régiment and Don Pasquale, and Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Smetana’s folksy Bartered Bride.
There are guides to dramatic ‘historical’ operas: Verdi’s Don Carlo, Un Ballo in Maschera, The Sicilian Vespers, as well as Mussorgsky’s evocative Boris Godunov.
You can be briefed about opera ‘shockers’, Strauss’s Salome and Elektra, Janáček’s horrific Jenůfa and Poulenc’s emotional Dialogues des Carmélites.
These dramas are tempered by a Short Guide to Norma by Bellini ─ a favourite of Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland ─ and romantic opera such as Massenet’s Manon and Werther, Dvořák’s charming Rusalka, and Humperdinck’s bewitching Hänsel und Gretel.