| Contents |
Introduction -- The lyric theater of the Greeks -- Medieval dramatic music -- The immediate forerunners of opera -- The beginnings : opera in Florence and Mantua -- Other early seventeenth-century Italian court operas, including the first comic operas in Florence and Rome -- Italian opera in the later seventeenth century in Italy -- Seventeenth-century Italian opera in German-speaking lands -- Early German opera -- Opera in France from Lully to Charpentier -- Opera in England -- Masters of the early eighteenth century -- Opera seria : general characteristics -- Opera seria : the composers -- The operas of Gluck -- The comic opera of the eighteenth century -- The operas of Mozart and his Viennese contemporaries -- The turn of the [nineteenth] century -- Grand opera -- Opéra comique, operetta, and lyric opera -- Italian opera of the primo ottacento : Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and their contemporaries -- The romantic opera in Germany -- The operas of Wagner -- The later nineteenth century : France, Italy, Germany, and Austria -- National traditions of opera -- Introduction [to opera of the twentieth century] ; Opera in France and Italy -- Opera in the German-speaking countries -- National opera in Russia and neighboring countries; central and eastern Europe; Greece and Turkey; the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland; Spain, Portugal, and Latin America -- Opera in the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand -- Opera in the United States -- Appendix : Chinese opera (Xiqu). |
