“The best single volume ever written on the subject, such is its range, authority, and readability.”—Times Literary Supplement Why has opera transfixed an

From classic films like Carmen Jones to contemporary works like The Diary of Sally Hemings and U-Carmen eKhayelitsa, American and South African artists and comp

A historical survey of opera, from its beginnings in Florence 400 years ago, up to opera in the 1990s.

In Opera: A History in Documents, Piero Weiss presents a wide-ranging, vivid, and carefully researched tour of operatic history. A unique anthology of primary s

This text tells how opera, steeped in European aristocratic tradition, was transplanted into the democratic cultural enviroment of America. It includes vignette