The opera-goer's indispensable guide. About to see Rossinis William Tell, Verdis I Lombardi, Glucks Alceste, Philzners Palestrina, Brittens A Midsummer Nights Dream? The stories of these operas and 120 others are told, clearly and concisely, in this companion volume to the highly successful Metropolitan Open Stories of the Great Operas. Opera News associate editor John W. Freeman untangles and summarizes the often complicated plots and provides, in addition, an informative biographical sketch of each composer, world and U.S. premiere dates, lists of characters, and other background information. The works included here are selected from the repertory of European and American opera companies. They span more than three and one-half centuries, from Monteverdis Il Ritorno dUlisse in Patria (1640) to Philip Glasss The Voyage (1992), and are set in venues as diverse as the legendary Palace of Time (Lullys Atys) and twentieth-century Manhattan (Anthony Daviss X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X). The operas are arranged alphabetically by composer and indexed by all the usual versions of the title (e.g., Der Zigeunerbaron, The Gypsy Baron). Published jointly by the Metropolitan Opera Guild and W. W. Norton, the book is not only a most valuable resource but also, as Beverly Sills notes in her foreword, immense fun just to read.
