Twentieth Century Opera ─ A Guide

The earlier edition of this book, published in 1979, surveved 75 years of opera, offering synopses of 78 major works, noting trends and accomplishments and speculating upon what was likely to occur in the next 25 years. Now, from the threshold of the millennium, George Martin reports on the entire twentieth century, replacing speculation with operas composed and trends established. To that end some parts of the last edition (but none of the synopses) have been replaced with new material: an introductory chapter, synopses of eleven additional operasincluding Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts, Weill's Street Scene, Blitzstein's Regina, Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, Glass's Satyagraha, Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Davies' The Lighthouse, Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and John Adams's Nixon in China - and a "Compendium and Glossary" of composers, critical terms and pertinent miscellanea.