Discusses opera's history, looks at the best singers of the past and present, explains the role of the conductor, and describes the fifty most-performed operas

Designed as a companion volume to 2006's Inside the Ring, which focused on the four operas comprising Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, this new volume features more than a dozen original essays focusing on all of Wagner's non-Ring operas. Part One looks at the individual operas, including Der Fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, and Parsifal. Part Two reveals the connections between Wagnerian opera and other arts, including dance, filmmaking, and fiction. Finally, Part Three examines Wagner's operas in performance, featuring interviews with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and heldentenor Ben Heppner, both well-known for their Wagnerian performances. The book includes many photographs from current productions by the Metropolitan Opera and other opera companies, along with bibliographies and a discography of recommended performances.

'Luigi Pirandello, tormented by schizophrenia of his wife and family members, Noèel Coward's self-obsessed characters reflect his own narcissism. Alcoholism is a recurrent theme in the works of many playwrights, including Eugene O'Neill, Edward Albee, and Brian Friel. This book looks at 20 playwrights to see how their examination of the disturbed mind influenced the modern theater'--Provided by publisher.

'Once tainted by association with Hitler and Nazism, Richard Wagner's work has experienced an international cultural renaissance in the last 25 years. This book, with essays for both the uninitiated and the seasoned fan, examines Wagner's Ring cycle froma wide array of modern perspectives'--Provided by publisher.

Product Description: Composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) likely suffered from a manic-depressive disorder but in his time very little was known about mental illness, and suicide was not a topic for general discussion. Wagner was often plagued by extreme mood swings; he used his operas, especially the librettos, to express himself and his personal difficulties...read more

Product Description: Puccini the Thinker traces Puccini’s development as an opera composer and thinker, focusing on the composer’s ideas as they appear in his operas. The book, written for the operagoer and the admirer of Puccini’s operas in addition to the musicologist, has chapters on all of Puccini’s operas and divides them into three general categories: myth and vision; God, religion, and the Roman Catholic Church; and economics, politics, and society...read more

Product Description: Joining two seemingly irreconcilable opposites, money and art, this edited collection analyzes the treatment of money in various forms of literature. The volume begins with chapters analyzing money in terms of language and culture, and then turns to money in history, showing how money has been influenced by, and has changed, history...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: The life and career of the Nobel Prize winning dramatist Luigi Pirandello is the subject of this important new reference companion. Designed to improve the general understanding of this major literary figure, the book focuses not only on Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello's most famous work, but also on other plays, novels, short stories, and even translations of his poems...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Wagner's Ring cycle - "The Ring of the Niebelung" - has been described as one of the most enduring of operatic spectacles. This collection has brought together writings on the Ring and includes articles by George Bernard Shaw, Georg Solti and Andrew Porter, excerpts from Wagner's own letters and works and discourses by over 30 other writers...read more

Product Description: The author of The Love of Three Oranges, Turandot and The Snake Lady is an almost forgotten figure who, despite calling his reminiscences Useless Memoirs, would surely have hated our stage for the neglect we've provided him with. Gozzi was one of Italy's greatest playwrights...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

A guide to communication for managers includes discussions of business letters, reports, memos, public speaking, and telecommunication systems