The Story of Opera

In the late 16th century, a group of Florentine poets, intellectuals and musicians formed an academy dedicated to developing a new musical style in imitation of ancient Greek drama. Their creation, il dramma per musica (drama expressed through music), was soon transformed into a popular art form known as opera. In his admirable history of this ""multimedia entertainment,"" Somerset-Ward, formerly BBC Television's head of music and arts programming, shows how opera quickly gained favor in the Renaissance courts of northern Italy as well as in Naples, France, England and central Europe. He then follows it through the Age of Enlightenment; the Romantic Movement; the 19th century in Italy and Paris; numerous nationalist trends; the verismo movement in Italy; the varieties of popular musical theater; and into the 20th century. He gives his story a lively focus by concentrating on the extraordinary personalities who have shaped opera during its 400-year history--composers, librettists, singers, conductors, patrons, impresarios, set designers, stage directors, even audiences. With the rise of the stage director, Somerset-Ward contends, drama has become as important as music, thereby moving opera closer to genuine theater and making ours the ""first truly great age of opera."" Innovative staging, he notes, also breathes new life into old warhorses and is often what makes avant-garde opera palatable to audiences not attuned to atonality and dissonance. If Somerset-Ward's writing rarely transcends the workmanlike, this introduction is still accessible, informative and, with 237 illustrations, 118 in color, eye-catching. BOMC selection. (Nov.)