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. What can explain Wagner s obsession with "Tannhauser," which he first conceived in 1845 and still considered unfinished at his death in 1883? Describing of the struggle of a man torn between erotic love and spiritual fulfilment, the opera contains the kernels of all his later works: man s need for love and artistic satisfaction, his desire for an existence beyond death, the operation of memory, and the nature...

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. A product of Hungary s political ferment at the start of the 20th century, Bela Bartok s works couple his determination to participate in Western art movements with an enthusiasm for the folk traditions of a disappearing world. In this introduction to Bartok s stage works, Julian Grant describes the score for "Duke Bluebeard s Castle," a symbolist version of the Bluebeard myth. Included in this volume are...

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. In this Guide to Pelleas, Maeterlinck's play is reprinted in full, so that the opera-lover can read the scenes that Debussy did not set to music. Hugh Macdonald's much praised English translation is published here for the first time, with an essay uncovering the musical roots of Pelleas and illustrating its importance to music of the twentieth century. Alain Raitt, author of several studies of Symbolist...