A-Z of Opera

I've never been much of a fan of opera. Like most classical music it often suffers from giving the impression of being overlong, bombastic, pretentious and something that only "posh" people listen to. The cost of tickets to most performances especially Covent Garden only serves to exacerbate this. The only operas that I can sit all the way through are "Carmen" and "Madame Butterfly". However that should not put you off ...
...from their "complete opera" settings.

This package is a superb introduction to opera from the excellent Naxos (www.naxos.com) organisation and is available at an extremely reasonable price (RRP 9.99 GBP). It consists of a 762 page book and a double CD with two and a half hours (38 pieces) of opera extracts selected from the Naxos catalogue.

~ The Book

This is an extremely informative but sometimes ... more

I've never been much of a fan of opera. Like most classical music it often suffers from giving the impression of being overlong, bombastic, pretentious and something that only "posh" people listen to. The cost of tickets to most performances especially Covent Garden only serves to exacerbate this. The only operas that I can sit all the way through are "Carmen" and "Madame Butterfly". However that should not put you off listening to the extremely wide range of music music extracted from their "complete opera" settings.

This package is a superb introduction to opera from the excellent Naxos (www.naxos.com) organisation and is available at an extremely reasonable price (RRP 9.99 GBP). It consists of a 762 page book and a double CD with two and a half hours (38 pieces) of opera extracts selected from the Naxos catalogue.

~ The Book

This is an extremely informative but sometimes self deprecating book by Keith Anderson. It is broken up into a number of parts, a twenty page introduction , followed by six hundred pages of short guides to individual operas listed alphabetically, followed by thirt pages of composers biographies, a glossary of opera terms, a list of illustrations, an index op operas by composer and finally a page about the author Keith Anderson. It is the same size as a CD , but obviously very thick, so should fit on the shelf with your other CDs. The book is very easy to read and navigate and well laid out and is as good an introduction to Opera as you'll get. It lists further reading for those who wish to take their investigations further. My only worry is that if it gets heavy use the binding may not be heavy duty enough to keep it together.

~ The Music

The Cds are packed with music you will know well , as well as more obscure discoveries. Beethove, Mozart , Puccini, Wagner and Verdi are all represented. My favourite pieces on here include Rossini's "Largo et Factotum" from "The Barber of Seville", Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" from "Die Walküre" and Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot. There are many more famouse piecse of music on the CDs making this a truly excellent purchase.

If you don't know much about opera, or not sure whether you like it, then this is an excellent purchase. I've already purchased four copies from Amazon for myself , friends and family, and even if you are ar great opera fan, the book is a wonderfully informed guide to the librettos and so could save you a fortune in Concert programs. 

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