One of the most successful musicals of all time, Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'The Phantom Of The Opera' has now been adapted for the cinema. This book traces the 'Phantom' legend from Gaston Leroux's original story, covering both the history of the stage musical and the making of Joel Schumacher's film adaptation.

There's a reason La Boh me has been staged at the Met more often than any other opera: Puccini's enticing music perfectly conveys the enchantment of new young love and the anguish that comes with loss and death. La Boh me, the passionate and timeless story of love among impoverished young artists in Paris, can stake its claim as the world's most popular opera. It has a marvelous ability to make a powerful first impression (even on those new to opera) and to reveal unexpected treasures after dozens of hearings. At first glance, La Boh me is the definitive depiction of the joys and sorrows of love and loss; on closer inspection, it reveals the deep emotional significance hidden in the trivial things (a bonnet, an old overcoat, a chance meeting with a neighbor) that make up our everyday lives. This touching story of tenderness and tragedy never fails to move audiences and melt hearts. This gorgeous souvenir libretto includes extensive background notes and photos from productions through the years.

This dazzling study of the three operas that Giuseppe Verdi adapted from Shakespeare's plays takes readers on a wonderfully engaging journey through opera, music, literature, history, and the nature of genius. Verdi's Shakespeare explores the writing and staging of Macbetto (Macbeth), Otello (Othello), and Falstaff, operas by Verdi, an Italian composer who could not read a word of English but who adored Shakespeare. Delving into the fast-paced worlds of these men and the hands-on life of the stage that at once challenged them and gave flight to their brilliance, Wills, in his inimitable way, illuminates the birth of artistic creation.

Illustrated with hundreds of photographs and based on research in the Met's massive archives, this history chronicles and celebrates the Met's first one hundred years and the legendary stars and conductors who have performed there

In "The Ring And The Wolf", Gottfried Wagner chronicles his family's connection with National Socialism, from his great-grandfather's anti-Semitic pamphlets to his father's, uncle's and grandparent's close relationship with Adolf Hitler.

Gottfried's grandmother, Winifred, formed a special closeness to Hitler. It was Winifred who reportedly supplied the paper on which Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. Her two sons, Wieland and Wolfgang (Gottfried's father), called Hitler "Uncle Wolf".

As a young child, Gottfried discovered his family's controversial past, which has lead him on an impassioned crusade as an adult to examine the hatred and prejudice he knew growing up in Bayreuth -- a cultural and political center of German society led by the Wagner family with their annual festival in honor of Richard Wagner's operas.

With a judicious eye for telling detail and a sweeping sense of conscience, Gottfried Wagner lays bare the sins of a most powerful family.

In its lavish amalgam of theatrical and musical resources, its flamboyant charm, its extravagant appeal to the heart and the mind, and its seemingly inexhaustible power to move and astonish us, opera is clearly the most spectacular of all the arts. Now, eleven leading authorities chronicle the full sweep of this stunning musical genre, ranging from the earliest known works to such recent experimental efforts as Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach.
The contributors--including such noted opera critics as William Ashbrook, Paul Griffiths, and Barry Millington--provide superb coverage of all the major periods. We read of the remarkable success of opera in republican Venice, where by 1650 some fifty operas had been performed, including masterworks by Monteverdi, the giant of the era. We learn of opera seria--which within the world of eighteenth-century Italian opera was the summit of prestige--and opera buffa, most noted today for three major works by Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutti. We explore the peak of opera's popularity in nineteenth-century France, Italy, and Germany, with astute commentary on such major composers as Berlioz, Bizet, Rossini, Donizetti, and especially Wagner and Verdi. And we examine the remarkably diverse works of our own century, from Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier and Alban Berg's Wozzeck to Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice and John Adams's Nixon in China. Throughout, the contributors illuminate how opera often reflects the cultural concerns of the age, how it is part of the social fabric, and in three fascinating sections on staging, singers, and the social climate, they give us a look behind the scenes as well as a feel for what opera was like in the past. We discover, for instance, that before the late nineteenth century, patrons were not expected to arrive on time, sit still, keep quiet, concentrate on the stage action, or stay to the end (Wagner put an end to this practice by darkening the theatre).
Nowhere does the rich panoply of opera history unfold more grandly than in this volume. Authoritative, vivid, and beautifully written, it will be treasured by everyone who loves opera.

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Rossini is one of the great operatic composers, an innovator within the whole concept of what was appropriate for serious as well as comic opera. "Moses" is a score which he revised for Paris, ten years after it had been composed for Naples; the result shows the evolution of his dramatic taste over a crucial decade--from the neo-classical sublime to spectacular Romantic grand opera. "The Barber" has been a consistent favorite with the public and performers since it opened, and Marco Spada analyses how its stylish comedy has been misunderstood. Other essays throw light on the working conditions of the opera industry in Rossini's Italy, on Balzac's delightful novel concerning "Moses" and on the exceptional challenge of performing this type of music to a high standard.