The Complete Operas of Verdi is the first full-length study of all of Verdi's operas. This work of the brilliant British music critic Charles Osborne covers Verdi's complete operatic oeuvre- including the missing choral works, songs, a string quartet, and the Messa da Requiem. The Shakespeare's Falstaff and Othello, show how the legendary composer added both depth and dignity to the Italian operatic repertoire.
The Complete Operas of Verdi is the first full-length study of all of Verdi's operas. This work of the brilliant British music critic Charles Osborne ...
The major operas of Mozart--Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Cosifan Tutte--are well known to music listeners everywhere, having secured a permanent place in the repertoire of companies throughout the world. But how much do you know about La Clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo, L'Oca del Cairo, Zaide? Charles Osborne here provides detailed descriptions of all of these and fourteen others in a volume that serves both a first-rate biography and an exhaustive critical guide to the Mozart oeuvre. Charles Osborne is obviously in command of the literature: He quotes...
The major operas of Mozart--Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Cosifan Tutte--are well known to music listeners everywhere,...
While Puccini wrote only twelve operas during a long life--three of them one-acters designed to be performed together--he has to be ranked today as the world's most popular composer of opera. His La Boheme and Tosca are more frequently performed in the major opera houses than works by other composers, and Madame Butterfly and Manon Lescaut rank not far behind. What is the explanation for Puccini's enormous success? How do his operas work as music and drama? What was he like to contemporaries such as Verdi, Toscanini, and Caruso? Charles Osborne, author of highly...
While Puccini wrote only twelve operas during a long life--three of them one-acters designed to be performed together--he has to be ranked today as th...
Wagner's operas can be counted among the most important works of art of the nineteenth century. But Wagner was a composer around whom violent artistic, political, and literary controversies raged during his lifetime. Even today, Wagner's music seems to arouse either adulation or antipathy. In The Complete Operas of Richard Wagner, as in the first four volumes of his famous series on the great opera composers, Charles Osborne first describes the composer's life at the time he wrote each opera, thus providing a biographical thread which runs through the book; follows it with a thorough...
Wagner's operas can be counted among the most important works of art of the nineteenth century. But Wagner was a composer around whom violent artistic...
Agatha Christie was the author of over 100 plays, short story collections and novels which have been translated into 103 languages; she is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. There have been many attempts to capture her personality on paper, to discover her motivations or the reasons for her popularity. Charles Osborne, a lifelong student of Agatha Christie, has approached this most private of persons above all through her books, and the result is a companion to her life and work.
Agatha Christie was the author of over 100 plays, short story collections and novels which have been translated into 103 languages; she is outsold onl...
W HAT I H A V E attempted in this book is a survey of song; the kind of song which one finds variously described as 'concert', 'art', or sometimes even 'classical song'. 'Concert song' seems the most useful, certainly the least inexact or misleading, of some descriptions, especially since 'art song' sounds primly off- putting, and 'classical song' really ought to be used only to refer to songs written during the classical period, i. e. the 18th century. Concert song clearly means the kind of songs one hears sung at concerts or recitals. Addressing myself to the general music-lover who, though...
W HAT I H A V E attempted in this book is a survey of song; the kind of song which one finds variously described as 'concert', 'art', or sometimes eve...
Bertolt Brecht's extraordinary historical novel presents an aspiring scholar's efforts to write an idealized life of Julius Caesar twenty years after his death. But the historian abandons his planned biography, confronted by a baffling range of contradictory views. Was Caesar an opportunist, a permanently bankrupt businessman who became too big for the banks to allow him to fail - as his former banker claims? Did he stumble into power while trying to make money, as suggested by the diary of his former slave? Across these different versions of Caesar's career in the political and economic...
Bertolt Brecht's extraordinary historical novel presents an aspiring scholar's efforts to write an idealized life of Julius Caesar twenty years aft...
Bertolt Brecht's extraordinary historical novel presents an aspiring scholar's efforts to write an idealized life of Julius Caesar twenty years after his death. But the historian abandons his planned biography, confronted by a baffling range of contradictory views. Was Caesar an opportunist, a permanently bankrupt businessman who became too big for the banks to allow him to fail - as his former banker claims? Did he stumble into power while trying to make money, as suggested by the diary of his former slave? Across these different versions of Caesar's career in the political and economic...
Bertolt Brecht's extraordinary historical novel presents an aspiring scholar's efforts to write an idealized life of Julius Caesar twenty years aft...
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time with her works outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. She is regarded by generations of fans as the greatest mystery writer ever, and her novels are read and cherished the world over.
Clarissa, the young wife of a Foreign Office Diplomat, delights in tweaking the sensibilities of her more serious friends and for playing a game she calls "supposing" - imagining a difficult situation and figuring out how people would respond. But Clarissa's lighthearted game becomes deadly serious when she discovers the dead body of an...
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time with her works outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. She is regarded by genera...
