PENGUIN BOOKS
A HISTORY OF OPERA
‘I hope that anyone who has googled down a song they heard on an advert and found it was from an opera buys this book, and realises the extent to which the operatic has been a touchstone for our griefs, our needs, our joys and our aspirations’ Stuart Kelly, Scotsman
‘Scholarly yet accessible … a celebration of the art’ Liz Thomson, Independent, Books of the Year
‘A superb new history of opera … I don’t think I’ve ever read or heard a better analysis of how a duet works … They write clearly and gracefully’ Wendy Lesser, Prospect
‘There’s reason to applaud a new volume like A History of Opera, in which vast scholarly authority is put to the service of a narrative both lucid and sweeping’ Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe
‘Unfailingly intelligent … their coverage of every period in opera’s history is scrupulous and provocative’ Kirkus Reviews
‘Parker and Abbate have written … a highly idiosyncratic and personal history of opera. [It] has a brio, insouciance, and even irreverence that are very much their own … The book is always lively and readable, full of opinionated but (except at the end) benevolent judgments’ G. W. Bowersock, New Republic
‘Some books, like the finest haute cuisine, can be all the better for having had time to simmer, steam and stew. For a number of years now, the word on the Rialto was that two of our leading opera scholars, the American musicologist Carolyn Abbate and Britain’s Roger Parker, were cooking up a substantial history of opera: the resulting feast has been well worth the wait and is a joy to consume … With all its welcome readability, this is a serious and scholarly book’ Daniel Snowman, Opera
‘Their enthusiasm runs through every page of their 400-year conspectus … refreshingly accessible’ Andrew Clark, Financial Times
‘Writers on opera tend to fall into two mutually hostile camps: the mind people and the body people. Abbate and Parker are in possession of minds and bodies, alive to pleasures rational as well as sensual. Their take on opera is generous – singers and audiences and directors claim their attention, and people their pages, alongside composers and librettists – and their prose is gorgeous, combining scholarly precision with the ardor of true lovers’ Richard Taruskin, Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley