Customer Reviews

The Opera Lover's Companion

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Charles Osborne has written many books about opera--books about the complete operas of Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and others, for instance--and is a well-respected authority in the field. This book contains information about almost 200 operas, most of them popular and frequently mounted, but some of them pretty rare--works like Szymanowski's 'King Roger,' Dallapiccola's 'Il prigioniero,' and Zimmermann's 'Die Soldaten.' The format of each entry is as follows: Composer and his dates, name of the opera, type of opera, approximate length, cast of characters with their voice type, information about librettist and original plot source, time and place of the action, where and when first performed. This is followed by a few paragraphs about the composer and the origins of the work, often containing interesting tidbits about the how the work got to the stage, who was involved in the première, early reaction to the opera and so forth. Then there is a fairly detailed (and clearly written) plot summary, followed by Osborne's own description and assessment of the music, the high points of the score, weak points in the score if any and finally a recommendation for a recording. It is of note that he recommends audio (CD) recordings but no DVD or videotape versions. (I find myself agreeing more often than not with his recommendations in those instances where I have my own opinion.) There is a fairly barebones index at the back of the book.

Not every opera gets equal treatment. It seems that Osborne is more taken with Italian bel canto opera than other sorts, but that may be my mistaken view since I'm least interested in that area of the repertoire. He often makes rather pointed (and humorously accurate) comments as when he refers to Douglas Moore's 'The Ballad of Baby Doe' as 'sub-Britten' or when he says that in 'Adriana Lecouvreur' 'Cilea spreads his melodic gift thinly.' There is a more than occasional waspishness that I frankly rather enjoyed. Sometimes, though, he is strangely vague as when he says, simply, that Barber 'was a friend of the opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti,'--they were long-time lovers--or when he omits telling us of Erika's miscarriage in Act III of 'Vanessa.' There are the usual number of minor solecisms--misspelling of conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni's last name, repeated misspelling of the name of noted Bohemian writer and librettist of Dvorák's 'Rusalka,' Jaromir Kvapil. No glaring substantive errors were noted.

I suspect this is a book intended primarily for readers who are relative newcomers to opera. Though I am not a more than moderately informed opera lover, I learned little new--but I was startled, I admit, to learn that 'Tirso de Molina,' the Spanish writer on whose 'El burlador de Sevilla' Mozart's and Da Ponte's 'Don Giovanni' was based, was a nom de plume for a monk named Gabriel Tellez.

Osborne has a graceful prose style and his use of humor and his willingness to state his artistic opinions makes the book a good deal more interesting to read than a simple recitation of the facts about opera.

Scott Morrison