Preface:
1: The Medici Wedding Festivities of 1589 (de' Rossi)
2: Pietro Bardi on the Birth of Opera
3: L'Euridice, the Second Opera (Buonarroti, Rinuccini, Peri, Caccini)
4: Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di anima, et di corpo (Guidotti, Cavalieri)
5: Monteverdi Criticizes a Libretto
6: Sant'Alessio at the Barberini Palace, Rome (Rospigliosi, Bouchard)
7: Opera Comes to Venice and Goes Public (Ivanovich)
8: Lully is Granted a Monopoly on Opera in French (Colbert, Lully)
9: The Grand Siècle Absorbs the Tragédie en musique (Perrault, La Fontaine, Boileau)
10: Saint-Évremond's Views on Opera
11: The First English Operas (Dryden)
12: Handel's Rinaldo at the Haymarket Theatre (Hill, G. Rossi, Addison, Steele)
13: Pier Jacopo Martello on Opera (1715)
14: The Président de Bosses in Italy (1739)
15: Metastasio on Setting Dramatic Recitative to Music
16: From Rousseau's Confessions
17: The War of the Buffoons (d'Holbach)
Interlude: A Traveling Company (G. Gozzi)
18: Operatic Reform in Vienna: Gluck and Calzabigi
19: Gluck in Paris (Meister)
20: Mozart at Work on Die Entführung aus dem Serail
21: Grétry's Richard Coeur-de-Lion (Meister, Grétry)
22: The Making of Le nozze di Figaro (L. and W.A. Mozart, Da Ponte)
23: Kierkegaard's Don Giovanni
24: Fidelio in 1806 (Röckel)
25: Berlioz's Estimate of Spontini
26: E. T. A. Hoffman on "Music Drama That Springs from the Heart"
27: The First Performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia (Righetti-Giorgi)
28: Der Freischütz: A German Triumph (M. M. von Weber)
29: Parisian Grand Opera: Auber's La Muette de Portici as Seen by Wagner
Interlude: Madame Pasta (Hunt)
30: Verdi's Own Story of How Nabucco Was Composed
31: Verdi's Operatic Style Analyzed by a Contemporary (Basevi)
32: Wagner on the Evolution of his Style
33: Wagner's Theory of Drama
34: Divergent Reactions to Boris Godunov (Laroche, Stasov)
35: Tchaikovsky on Eugene Onegin
36: Nietzsche vs. Wagner
37: Verdi's Otello (Boito, Verdi, Morelli)
Interlude: Verdi and Wagner in Vienna (J. Sulzer)
38: Verismo (Verga)
39: Four Men at Work on La bohème (Illica, Puccini, Ricordi, Giacosa)
40: Pelléas et Mélisande (Mauclair, journalist, Debussy)
41: Strauss and Hofmannsthal Work on Der Rosenkavalier
42: Duke Bluebeard's Castle (Ballász)
43: Busoni and the Reinstatement of Disbelief
44: In Defense of Kát'a Kabanová (Stuart)
45: Alban Berg on Wozzeck
46: Brecht on "Epic Opera"
47: Shostakovich and the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Debacle (Shostakovich, Pravda)
Interlude: An Italian Claque (Montale)
48: Peter Grimes in Postwar London (Edm. Wilson)
49: Stravinsky, Auden, and The Rake's Progress
50: A First Reaction to Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites (Mila)
51: Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass (Page)
52: John Adams on Nixon in China
Index:

Reviews

a most coherent, elegant, and perceptive survey of four centuries of operatic debate. This volume is a priceless addition to the literature, and the pages of my copy are already dog-eared from constant use. Music and Letters Opera: A History in Documents comes as treasure trove to the fan ... crisp, informative intros to each entry ... The extracts relating to theatres and performance are fascinating ... no true lover of opera can afford to be without this invaluable collection. Opera Now Weiss's book is a Jack Horner's pie full of plums, familiar and unfamiliar, many of them freshly and elegantly translated by Weiss himself ... a valuable and enjoyable book. Opera Weiss is head of the musicology department at John Hopkins, and the anthology that he has compiled makes up a history of opera that is learned, quirky, disjointed, spiced with the unexpected and the diversionary, and sometimes very funny; everything, in fact, that such a collection should be. Opera Excellent compilation ... a rich offering ... for students and intelligent opera lovers, the material on the operas selected will rapidly become indispensable BBC Music Magazine

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Reviews