num_pages: 656
description: The best single volume ever written on the subject such is its range authority and readability. Times Literary Supplement Why has opera transfixed and fascinated audiences for centuries? Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker answer this question in their effervescent witty ( Die Welt  Germany) retelling of the history of opera examining its development the musical and dramatic means by which it communicates and its role in society. Now with an expanded examination of opera as an institution in the twenty-first century this lucid and sweeping ( Boston Globe ) narrative explores the tensions that have sustained opera over four hundred years: between words and music character and singer inattention and absorption. Abbate and Parker argue that though the genres most popular and enduring works were almost all written in a distant European past opera continues to change the viewer physically emotionally intellectuallywith its enduring power. 24 pages of illustrations
language: English
title: A History of Opera
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company