Matthew Boyden
Autor(a) de The Rough Guide to Opera
About the Author
Matthew Boyden is a musicologist and writer on music. He has been editor of the classical record magazine CD Review and is the author of the Rough Guide to Opera. He has broadcast in England on Radio 3, Talk Radio, the World Service and Channel Four and is a trustee of the John Ogdon Foundation. He mostrar mais lives in a Wesleyan Chapel in Cornwall, England mostrar menos
Obras por Matthew Boyden
Associated Works
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1979-02-24
- Sexo
- male
Membros
Críticas
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 4
- Also by
- 1
- Membros
- 274
- Popularidade
- #84,603
- Avaliação
- 4.0
- Críticas
- 2
- ISBN
- 12
- Línguas
- 3
This book does not purport to be a selection of the "best" 100 operas - any such list would be too subjective to be useful. Instead, it discusses 100 key works by the seminal figures (arranged as an A to Z by composer, with works arranged chronologically within each composer entry), ranging from Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo, the earliest opera to have survived in the mainstream repertoire, to Harrison Birtwistle's Gawain, one of the major creations of the 1990s. When recommending our first-choice CDs we've generally given preference to recent recordings, but in several instances there are mono or early stereo sets that are so superior as performances that they demand inclusion. Don't assume, though, that the sound quality on any of these older sets is going to impair your enjoyment of the music - modern remastering techniques can make so-called "historic" recordings sound remarkably fresh. If you want to explore the ever-expanding roster of archival recordings, or get a more comprehensive overview of the repertoire, then you should move on to The Rough Guide to Opera, the definitive one-volume book on the subject.
All our recommended recordings are available in both Europe and North America, although some may require a special order - no store will have all these discs in stock at any one time. Every review is illustrated with the cover of the current edition, but bear in mind that classical music is re-packaged and re-released so frequently that some of our recommendations will certainly re-emerge in different form before too long. So if the catalogue shows that the recording you want is no longer around, get your stockist to check if the same performance has re-emerged with a new catalogue number - it's extremely unlikely that any of the CDs in this book will ever become extinct. Reissues are quite often sold at a lower price than the original release, but sometimes they come with a booklet synopsis rather than a full libretto. The great majority of the sets we've chosen do have a libretto included; the few exceptions are clearly identified.
Opera is a subject as rich as the novel, encompassing an extraordinary variety of work: the courtly extravaganzas of Lully; the acerbic satires of Kurt Weill; Richard Wagner's garguantuan philosophical mythologies; the witty frivolities of Offenbach; the thrilling vocal pyrotechnics of Donizetti. Here you'll find the whole world of opera condensed into just 200 pages. Whatever your tastes, there are recordings in this book that you'll want to listen to over and over again.… (mais)