Customer Reviews

La Boheme: English National Opera Guide 14 (English National Opera Guides)

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I recently started attempting to collect opera CDs and really listening to opera for the first time. Having been involved with music, and having performed classical music as an instrumentalist and vocalist for many years in high school and college, I am not a complete novice. So I ordered one of these guides to help me learn La Boheme, and understand what I was listening to.

What's good here are the essays and the English and Italian side by side. What's missing is a real good SCENE BY SCENE synoposis that breaks down the action. You get an overview of the story in the beginning of the book, but if you are expecting anything like Cliff notes for opera here, you may be disappointed. For that I found A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to the Plots, the Singers, the Composers, the Recordings. This book along with the English National Opera guide work together quite well.

The other criticism, and this may well be a point for older customers only...or those with poor eye sight - the print is extremely small. Get out your reading glasses and a good magnifying glass. You'll need them. Both. If you have the booklet that came with your CD set, you may not need this, but for those of us wanting to learn as much as we can and to appreicate opera, all in all, not a bad investment.