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Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
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Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera Paperback - 1994

by Fred Plotkin; Placido Domingo

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Written by an opera insider and featuring an introduction by Placido Domingo, here is a thorough, friendly, and truly complete guide to learning how to love and appreciate the opera. After a brief history of opera, the book includes a guide to operatic terms, a minute-by-minute listener's guide to 11 central works, a list of recommended books and recordings and much more.

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From the publisher

Opera is the fastest growing of all the performing arts, attracting audiences of all ages who are enthralled by the gorgeous music, vivid drama, and magnificent production values. If you've decided that the time has finally come to learn about opera and discover for yourself what it is about opera that sends your normally reserved friends into states of ecstatic abandon, this is the book for you.

Opera 101 is recognized as the standard text in English for anyone who wants to become an opera lover--a clear, friendly, and truly complete handbook to learning how to listen to opera, whether on the radio, on recordings, or live at the opera house. Fred Plotkin, an internationally respected writer and teacher about opera who for many years was performance manager of the Metropolitan Opera, introduces the reader (whatever his or her level of musical knowledge) to all the elements that make up opera, including:

  • A brief, entertaining history of opera;
  • An explanation of key operatic concepts, from vocal types to musical conventions;
  • Hints on the best way to approach the first opera you attend and how to best understand what is happening both offstage and on;
  • Lists of recommended books and recordings, and the most complete traveler's guide to opera houses around the world.


The major part of Opera 101 is devoted to an almost minute-by-minute analysis of eleven key operas, ranging from Verdi's thunderous masterpiece Rigoletto and Puccini's electrifying Tosca through works by Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini, Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, to the psychological complexities of Richard Strauss's Elektra. Once you have completed Opera 101, you will be prepared to see and hear any opera you encounter, thanks to this book's unprecedentedly detailed and enjoyable method of revealing the riches of opera.

Details

  • Title Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
  • Author Fred Plotkin; Placido Domingo
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition 1st
  • Pages 512
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Grand Central Publishing, U.S.A.
  • Publication date 1994-12-01
  • ISBN 9780786880256 / 0786880252
  • Weight 0.95 lbs (0.43 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.4 in (20.83 x 13.72 x 3.56 cm)
  • Age range 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Theometrics: Secular
  • Category Music/Songbooks
  • Library of Congress subjects Operas - Analysis, appreciation
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 94009477
  • Dewey Decimal Code 782.1

Media reviews

Citations

  • Booklist, 11/15/1994, Page 569

About the author

Fred Plotkin is the author of the bestselling and acclaimed Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera, which is the standard text in North American for discovering the glories of opera. He writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Opera News, Das Opernglas, and Gourmet.

He lectures on music for leading institutions, including Columbia University, the Juilliard School, and the Smithsonian. Plotkin is a popular guest on the intermission features of the Chevron Texaco-Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, and many shows on National Public Radio. An expert on Italy, he has written five definitive books on Italian food and wine.

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Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
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Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera

by Fred Plotkin

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Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera

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Opera 101 : A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
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Opera 101 : A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera

by Plotkin, Fred, Domingo, Placido

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Opera 101 : A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
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Opera 101 : A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera

by Plotkin, Fred, Domingo, Placido

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Opera 101 : A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
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Opera 101 : A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera

by Plotkin, Fred, Domingo, Placido

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