This opera handbook examines the work from historical and musical perspectives, to set it in the context of Mozart's age.

Publisher Description

From the bestselling author of "The Magician's Assistant" comes a marvelous novel of love, opera, and terrorism set in South America.

Stage and screen adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera have maintained the book's popularity, but the novel outdoes them all in Gothic tension and horror.With an Afterword by Peter Harness.

"--Robin Blake, The Independent on Sunday "It is always a pleasure to read a book by David Cairns--praise has always been lavished on his scholarship, style and breadth of reading--but what catches us in the end in this wonderful new book ...

"The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama.

A translation of Baldini's acclaimed study of verdi's operatic masterpieces, with new editorial additions.

This is the second volume of Julian Budden's monumental three-volume survey of the operas of Verdi. Hailed on publication for its extraordinary comprehensibility, the set has become the classic reference work on its subject.