Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker, A History of Opera

  • Brian J. Hart Northern Illinois University
Keywords: opera, textbooks

Abstract

While colored by strong biases, particularly regarding the present state of opera, A History of Opera by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker provides a thorough accounting of opera’s historical development as well as rich and penetrating insights into many of its greatest monuments. Abbate and Parker’s book will best be absorbed by graduate readers already conversant with the basics of opera history. But opera lovers of all backgrounds will find much to ponder in this book as they discover many new and stimulating insights about the power this art form experts.

Author Biography

Brian J. Hart, Northern Illinois University
Brian Hart has taught music history at Northern Illinois University since 1996. He is the author of “The French Symphony after Berlioz: From the Second Empire to the First World War,†an extensive study published in Vol. 3B of A. Peter Brown’s series The Symphonic Repertoire (Indiana University Press, 2007). He is author of the entries on César Franck and Arthur Honegger for Oxford Bibliographies Online. He was the program annotator for the 2001 Bard Music Festival, Debussy and His World, held at Bard College and Lincoln Center. Professor Hart will serve as the editor for The Symphony in the Americas, vol. 5B of The Symphonic Repertoire, to be published by Indiana University Press.
Published
2014-07-18
Issue
Vol 5 No 1: (Fall 2014)
Section
Reviews

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).