24 Italian Songs and Arias - Medium High Voice (Book/CD): Medium High Voice - Book/CD
from G. Schirmer, Inc.
For well over a century, the G. Schirmer edition of 24 Italian Songs and Arias of the 17th and 18th Centuries has introduced millions of beginning singers to serious Italian vocal literature. Offered in two accessible keys suitable for all singers, it is likely to be the first publication a voice teacher will ask a first-time student to purchase. The classic Parisotti realizations result in rich, satisfying accompaniments which allow singers pure musical enjoyment. For ease of practice, carefully prepared accompaniments are also recorded on CD by John Keene, a New York-based concert accompanist and vocal coach who has performed throughout the United States for radio and television. Educated at the University of Southern California, Keene has taught accompanying at the university level and collaborated with Gian Carlo Menotti and Thea Musgrave on productions of their operas.
The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great's Russia
by Douglas Smith
from Yale University Press
Filled with a remarkable cast of characters and set against the backdrop of imperial Russia, this tale of forbidden romance could be the stuff of a great historical novel. But in fact The Pearl tells a true tale, reconstructed in part from archival documents that have lain untouched for centuries. Douglas Smith presents the most complete and accurate account ever written of the illicit love between Count Nicholas Sheremetev (1751-1809), Russia’s richest aristocrat, and Praskovia Kovalyova (1768-1803), his serf and the greatest opera diva of her time.
Blessed with a beautiful voice, Praskovia began her training in Nicholas’s operatic company as a young girl. Like all the members of Nicholas’s troupe, Praskovia was one of his own serfs. But unlike the others, she utterly captured her master’s heart. The book reconstructs Praskovia’s stage career as “The Pearl” and the heartbreaking details of her romance with Nicholas—years of torment before their secret marriage, the outrage of the aristocracy when news of the marriage emerged, Praskovia’s death only days after delivering a son, and the unyielding despair that followed Nicholas to the end of his life. Written with grace and style, The Pearl sheds light on the world of the Russian aristocracy, music history, and Russian attitudes toward serfdom. But above all, the book tells a haunting story of love against all odds.
Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera
by Fred Plotkin
from Hyperion
Just as the title says, this is a basic primer on what opera is, what to look for and what to listen to. There is nothing stuffy in Plotkin's style, which is clear and idiomatic. The book also boasts a foreword by supertenor Placido Domingo.
Just as the title says, this is a basic primer on what opera is, what to look for and what to listen to. There is nothing stuffy in Plotkin's style, which is clear and idiomatic. The book also boasts a foreword by supertenor Placido Domingo.
A Soprano on Her Head: Right-Side-Up Reflections on Life and Other Performances
by Eloise Ristad
from Real People Press
(Foreword, by Lorin Hollander, concert pianist)
Eloise Ristad deals here with complex problems which torment and cripple so many of our most creative and talented people, and she does so with compassion, wisdom, and wit. The problem of stage fright, for instance, is a suffering of epidemic proportions in our society, and involves modalities of thought and projections that rob spontaneity and enthusiasm in artistic performance.
Those interested in creative education have long felt that an entirely new, holistic and nurturing process of allowing individuals to discover and express themselves is needed if our educational system is to avoid the neuroses and creative blocks of the past generation. This book illuminates through its conversational style the destructive inhibitions, fears, and guilt experienced by all of us as we fail to break through to creativity. This story is told to me day after day in conservatories and college campuses around the world. Indeed I felt at times that she was telling of my own most petty and debilitating fears.
But what is important, A Soprano on Her Head supplies answers and methods for overcoming these universal psychological blocks--methods that have not only been proven in her own studio, but which trace back through history to the oldest and wisest systems of understanding the integration of mind and body. The work bears scrutiny both scientifically and holistically.
This is a wonderful book. Read it. You are not alone.
Rent
by Jonathan Larson
from HarperEntertainment
This is by far the must-get theater book of the year. With dazzling punk graphics that will quickly win book industry awards, the volume contains the entire libretto of the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning musical about love and loyalty among starving AIDS-stricken artists in New York's East Village. But editors Evelyn McDonnell and Katherine Silberger wisely understand that the story of the show's creation is as compelling as the musical itself--so more than half of this volume is devoted to an oral history of the composer/lyricist/librettist Jonathan Larson, who came to New York hoping to revolutionize musical theater--then died of an aortic aneurysm the night of the show's final preview. It's an event book for an event musical.
In these pages, Rent offers what most theater books can't: a chance to step behind the curtain and feel the electricity of a stage phenomenon as it unfolds.
Rent has single-handedly reinvigorated Broadway and taken America by storm. Sweeping all major theater awards, including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama, as well as four 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score for a Musical, Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation, refleting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music, and the energy of its young cast. Now, for the first time, Rent comes to life on the page -- through vivid color photographs, the full libretto, and an utterly compelling behind-the-scenes oral history of the show's creation. Here is the exclusive and absolutely complete companion to Rent, told in the voices of the extraordinary talent behind its success: the actors, the director, the producers, and the librettist and composer himself, Jonathan Larson, whose sudden death, on the eve of the first performance, has made Rent's life-affirming message all the more poignant.
Opera for Dummies (Book and Audio CD)
by David Pogue
from For Dummies
Opera is growing--in the size of its audience, in the number of companies, in general interest--and is attracting a lot of attention among younger, more visually oriented people. But opera can be intimidating to the uninitiated: it's sung in foreign languages and has odd little customs (such as women singing the parts of young boys, and hefty middle-aged singers portraying teenaged lovers) that may be disconcerting at first. But opera needn't be at all intimidating, thanks to the miracle of supertitles (like subtitles, but projected above the stage), the advent of generations of singers who work at staying in shape, and the appearance of reference works like Opera for Dummies that are designed to remove the snobbery and mystery from opera. If you don't mind the flippant tone, IDG Books' Opera for Dummies makes an excellent guide for those who are new to this splendid art form. All of opera's details are explained clearly and without pretension; there's a lot of useful information packed into its 358 pages. The package includes an enhanced compact disc (listen to it in your stereo's CD player or in your computer's CD-ROM drive), with more than an hour of operatic excerpts from classic EMI releases. The illustrations, while not lavish, are adequate.
There are, however, a few glaring errors in this book that demand correction: Scott Speck and David Pogue confuse the opera chorus with the supers (the "extras" who march in armies, wait on tables, and never, ever sing), and--even worse--maintain that soloists and choristers are two entirely separate breeds. In fact, there's not a soloist alive who has never done chorus work--and choristers frequently do solo work as well. These are rather foolish mistakes for a pair of acclaimed experts to make in a book that wants to be taken as a basic guide to opera.
“Pogue is a wonderful teacher… He can teach anybody.”
— Gay Talese, bestselling author of Honor Thy Father
“Scott Speck is a great communicator of classical music…. Concert audiences and readers alike can’t help getting caught up in the joy of his subject.”
— David Styers, American Symphony Orchestra League
Opera is weird. Everybody wears makeup and sings all the time. Even when they’re singing your language, which is rare, you still can’t understand the words. Women play men, men play women, and 45-year-olds play teenagers. All the main characters seem to get killed off. And when somebody dies, he takes ten minutes to sing about it. Yet, for all its weirdness, an operatic experience is an experience in breathtaking beauty. When you hear a soprano float a soft high C, or a tenor singing a love song, or a full-throated chorus in the climax of a scene’s dramatic finale, you can’t help getting goosebumps.
Want to experience all that beauty for yourself, but don’t know where to begin? Opera For Dummies is an excellent place to start. Written by an acclaimed conductor and a musical director, this friendly guide tells you what you need to know to:
- Understand opera from the Baroque and Roman periods through today
- Interpret characters, orchestra, chorus, and other players
- Understand what’s happening, both on stage and off
- Choose the best seats
- Identify famous operas
- Build a great collection of opera recordings
- Locate opera sites and chat groups online
Whether you’re interested in attending a live opera, want to build a collection of recordings, or just want to be able to talk about opera intelligently, Opera For Dummies is for you. Among other things, you’ll explore:
- The words, the music, and the people who sing it
- The history of opera and the lives of the great composers
- Going to the opera — including tips for getting tickets, preparing for the opera, dressing for the opera, and more
- Musical and theatrical conventions used in opera
- In-depth synopses of the world’s most beloved operas
On the bonus CD you’ll find:
- More than 60 minutes of music compiled especially for the book
- A multimedia piece for PC or MAC
Wonder what it is about opera that can make a grown person cry like a baby? Find out in Opera For Dummies.
Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera
by Philip Gossett
from University Of Chicago Press
Winner of the 2007 Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and the 2007 Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.
Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett’s personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world's leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colorfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our most favorite operas.
Gossett begins by tracing the social history of nineteenth-century Italian theaters in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. He then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations opera scholars and opera conductors and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, Gossett also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design.
Throughout this extensive and passionate work, Gossett enlivens his history with reports from his own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro. The result is a book that will enthrall both aficionados of Italian opera and newcomers seeking a reliable introduction to it—in all its incomparable grandeur and timeless allure.
Il Divo: Our Music, Our Journey, Our Words
by Il Divo
from Headline Book Publishing
Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? (Who Was...?)
by Yona Zeldis McDonough
from Grosset & Dunlap
Born in Austria in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first piece of music, a minuet, when he was just five years old! Soon after, he was performing for kings and emperors. Although he died at the young age of thirty-five, Mozart left a legacy of more than 600 works. This fascinating biography charts the musician's extraordinary career and personal life while painting a vivid cultural history of eighteenth-century Europe. Black-and-white illustrations on every spread explore such topics as the history of opera and the evolution of musical instruments. There is also a timeline and a bibliography.
Illustrated by Carrie Robbins.
Cover illustration by Nancy Harrison.
100 Great Operas And Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses
by Henry W. Simon
from Anchor
An invaluable guide for both casual opera fans and afficionados, this volume contains act-by-act descriptions of operatic works ranging from the early seventeenth century masterworks of Monteverdi and Purcell to the modern classics of Menotti and Britten. Written in a lively anecdotal style, entries include character descriptions, historical background, and much more.
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