Lorenzo Da Ponte - A Biography of Mozart's Librettist: (Overture Music Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

FitzLyon, April

Arts & Literature

Overture Publishing

Pauline García Viardot, the daughter of the famous singer and composer Manuel García and younger sister of the celebrated Malibran, was a singer of genius and a woman of outstanding intellect. The first biography of Viardot not only recreates the drama of the prima donna's own life, but perfectly captures the scintillating brilliance of nineteenth-century artistic life: the colourful and diverse personalities of the Musset brothers, Chopin, George Sand, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Gounod and Saint-Saëns move in and out of Viardot's life. In 1843 Madame Viardot met the young Ivan Turgenev. From their first meeting until his death in 1883, he remained passionately devoted to her, following her around Europe and spending long periods of time as a member of her household. This authoritative study, which makes use of much hitherto unknown source material, has the fascination of a great Russian novel.

The Price of Genius - A Life of Pauline Viardot: (Overture Music Series)

First published in 1980, Traditions of the Classical Guitar has been described as the first book to examine in detail the many traditions of one of today’s most popular instruments. With its central focus on Andrés Segovia’s pioneering work in establishing the guitar as an international concert instrument, it goes on to examine in detail its subsequent developments with reference to great artists such as Bream, Williams, Díaz and Yepes. Traditions of the Classical Guitar continues to be a classic of twentieth-century guitar scholarship, offering a challenging assessment to perceptions of the guitar’s progress throughout the ages. It is also a timely reminder of the glorious years of Segovia’s concert career between 1909 and 1987; Segovia himself said of the work: “Graham Wade has shown his love for the guitar from the first page to the last; true love and understanding”.

Traditions of the Classical Guitar (Overture Music Series)

Arts & Photography

Wade, Graham

Music

These Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Among the features of this Guide to La Cenerentola,Philip Gossett throws new light on the remarkable story of the opera's composition,while Colin Graham,ENO producer,argues that it is the most sympathetic of all Rossini's comic masterpieces,and Mark Elder,ENO Music Director,shows how Rossini's musical style is exceptionally well suited to this enchanting story.

La Cenerentola (Cinderella): (English National Opera Guide 1) (Overture Opera Guides in Association With the English National Opera (Eno))

Rossini, Gioachino

Reference

These Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Aida is, for most of us, the quintessence of Ancient Egypt but it is certainly not just for archaeologists. Michael Rose points out that it is really about patriotism - an issue of burning importance to Verdi and his contemporaries. Music critic William Mann reflects that even a short look at the score reveals subtleties that repay careful listening. And Verdi's own letters show the germs of the opera grow from suggestion to creation.

Aida: (English National Opera Guide 2) (English National Opera Guides)

Verdi, Giuseppe

These Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Here David Cairns describes the many beauties of the score in loving detail, taking the reader through the complex plot, to clarify and interpret it.

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute): (English National Opera Guide 3) (English National Opera Guides)

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Fidelio is Beethoven's only opera and the composition he is said to have loved the most. Elizabeth Forbes introduces the background and composition of the opera,written and revised over the years when Europe was caught up in the Napoleonic campaigns. Basil Deane's musical commentary is the fruit of a life's study and devotion to the work. The last contribution is an extract from Ernest Newman's translation of Romain Rolland's classic study of Beethoven the Creator.

Fidelio: (English National Opera Guide 4) (English National Opera Guides)

Beethoven, Ludwig Van

In this guide, Julian Budden reviews the difficulties that faced the management that had commissioned La Traviata and how, in some previously unpublished letters, Verdi fought their views on casting the leading lady. Denis Arnold contributes a musical commentary. April FitzLyon discusses the social background of the 'lady of the camellias' in fact, fiction and on the stage, and Nicholas John compares the libretto with the play to show how skilfully it was adapted for the operatic stage.

La traviata: (English National Opera Guide 5) (English National Opera Guides)

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. "A Landmark in Musical History" is John Luke Rose's title for the introduction to this extraordinary piece of theatre. It belongs to the German tradition of mystical writing and a short note on the poem itself by Martin Swales and Timothy McFarland elucidates some of Wagner's literary techniques. Anthony Negus, who assisted Reginald Goodall on the WNO production of this opera, has contributed a penetrating analysis of the musical structure of the opera, while Patrick Carnegy assesses the remarkable solutions to staging an opera which some argue is best experienced with your back to the performers! In association with English National Opera.

Tristan und Isolde: (English National Opera Guide 6)

WAGNER, RICHARD

These Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Winton Dean relates how Otello came into being as much because of the persistence of Verdi's publisher as of the composer's lifelong passion for Shakespeare, and the collaboration of the brilliant poet Arrigo Boito. Benedict Sarnaker argues that this magnificent largescale opera rivals Shakespeare in intensity and profundity. William Weaver's lively review of Shakespeare on the Italian stage in the last century enables us to make a wholly fresh appraisal of Verdi's stature as a dramatist. The libretto itself is a masterpiece, and Andrew Porter has also translated the third-act revision which Verdi came to prefer and which has not been performed outside France before the 1981 ENO production.

Otello: (English National Opera Guide 7)

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