Operetta: A Theatrical History (Oxford paperbacks)
by By Traubner, Richard
Category: Music , Genres & Styles , Opera

This entertaining and thorough examination of operetta remains the only complete, richly-illustrated history available of a delightful form of musical theater which has enraptured audiences around the world for over a century. Coming at a time of renewed enthusiasm for operetta, Richard Traubner's timely volume shakes the dust off many exciting pieces, while documenting the creation of the masterworks of the form, including Orphï¿½e aux Enfers, Die Fledermaus, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Merry Widow, The Desert Song, and White Horse Inn.  It covers the careers of the major operetta composers and librettists--including Offenbach, Hervï¿½, Strauss, Gilbert and Sullivan, Lehï¿½r, Coward, and Lerner and Loewe--the original productions of their works, the principal foreign versions, the famous revivals, and related aspects of public and critical reaction, as well as providing a chronicle of operetta's greatest theaters and most popular stars.