Traces the developments in the evolution of musical drama. This book aims to reveal the genre's beginnings in the seventeenth century and its progress. It examines the standard performance repertoire and works considered important for the genre's development. It also presents an investigation of opera from Eastern European countries and Finland. List of Illustrations ix Preface to the Fourth Edition xi Introduction 1(8) PART 1 Music and Drama to the End of the Sixteenth Century 1 The Lyric Theater of the Greeks 9(4) 2 Medieval Dramatic Music 13(8) 3 The Immediate Forerunners of Opera 21(20) PART 2 The Seventeenth Century 4 The Beginnings: Opera in Florence and Mantea 41(19) 5 Other Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Court Operas, Including the First Comic Operas in Florence and Rome 60(23) 6 Italian Opera in the Later Seventeenth Century in Italy 83(24) 7 Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera in German-Speaking Lands 107(14) 8 Early German Opera 121(11) 9 Opera in France from Lully to Charpentier 132(15) 10 Opera in England 147(18) PART 3 The Eighteenth Century 11 Masters of the Early Eighteenth Century 165(38) 12 Opera Seria: General Characteristics 203(22) 13 Opera Seria: The Composers 225(28) 14 The Operas of Gluck 253(19) 15 The Comic Opera of the Eighteenth Century 272(33) 16 The Operas of Mozart and His Viennese Contemporaries 305(30) PART 4 The Nineteenth Century 17 The Turn of the Century 335(18) 18 Grand Opera 353(16) 19 Opéra Comique, Operetta, and Lyric Opera 369(14) 20 Italian Opera of the Primo Ottocento: Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Their Contemporaries 383(34) 21 The Romantic Opera in Germany 417(19) 22 The Operas of Wagner 436(37) 23 The Later Nineteenth Century: France, Italy, Germany, and Austria 473(34) PART 5 Other National Traditions of Opera from the Seventeenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries 24 National Traditions of Opera 507(70) PART 6 The Twentieth Century 25 Introduction Opera in France and Italy 577(34) 26 Opera in the German-Speaking Countries 611(51) 27 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 662(46) 28 Opera in the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand 708(21) 29 Opera in the United States 729(58) Appendix: Chinese Opera (Xiqu) 787(8) List of Abbreviations 795(2) Bibliography 797(100) Sources and Translations of Musical Examples 897(14) Index 911