Item Detail
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Glick, Andrew
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A dictionary of heroes, heroines, lovers, and villains in classical opera
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Book
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Lewiston, N.Y.
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c2004
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Edwin Mellen Press
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xii, 477 p. ; 24 cm.
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English
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0773462848; 9780773462847
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Opera--Dictionaries.
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ML 102 .O6 G54 2004
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Glick, Andrew S. A Dictionary of Heroes, Heroines, Lovers, and Villains in Classical Opera. Lewiston; Queenston; Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004.
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A dictionary for opera aficionados who wish to quickly identify the names, dates, arias, and characters associated with a specific opera.
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Coverage is broad, featuring 514 operas spanning 400 years of Western music. There appears to be no easily defined criteria beyond opera or genres closely resembling opera.
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Organized into five sections. The first (69 pages) consists of a numbered, alphabetical list of operas by their original-language title. Each entry gives the names of the composer and librettist, the number of acts, and information regarding place and year of premiere. The second section (81 pages) is an alphabetical listing of arias. It provides a number, which corresponds to the opera it belongs to as listed in first section. The third section (288 pages) lists characters alphabetically by name. The entry is composed of information on its vocal classification, the opera it belongs to, and brief one-line description of the character. The fourth section (10 pages) lists the composers alphabetically by name and provides their birth and death dates. The fifth section (23 pages) lists the librettists alphabetically by name and provides their birth and death dates. Finishes with a bibliographical list of 8 sources.
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It includes works written as recently as 1990.
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Entries are spartan and generally unhelpful if one requires anything beyond names and dates, or anything that cannot be consigned to less than eight words. Also, the term classical is misleading: featured operas are drawn from the 17th century to the late 20th century. Author's criteria makes no distinction between Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, Meyerbeer grand opera, or Sondheim musicals, for example. Sections work independently of the othersfor example, arias are cross-referenced to their respective operas, but not visa versa, making complete information on one opera time-consuming to identify. Nonsensical typographical errors are occasionally present on various pages.
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BYU Mus Ref
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3259