Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This first-of-its-kind highly entertaining and carefully researched account reveals how nearly 200 operas by leading composers and librettists have portrayed the major events and personalities of more than 2000 years of history. In a continuous and absorbing narrative the book sweeps from Roman times to 1820 with a cast of characters that includes Julius Caesar Antony and Cleopatra Attila Charlemagne Henry VIII Elizabeth I Catherine the Great Napoleon and hundreds more. All are seen as the figures historians generally perceive them to have been and as their on-stage counterparts created and re-imagined by some of opera's greatest artists.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [333]-338) and index.