Dějiny opery - Posledních čtyřista let – Parker Roger (2017)

This history of opera offers an informed analysis of numerous works by the greatest composers, from Monteverdi and Handel through Mozart and Verdi to Wagner, Strauss, Puccini, Berg and Britten. The authors also vividly describe opera’s social, political and literary background, its economic context and the nearly continuous controversies that have accompanied its development over the centuries. The book focuses on the tensions between music and words and between characters and singers that bring opera to life and sustain it. In a provocative final chapter, the authors examine the problem opera has faced over the past half-century, when almost no new operas have been created, and those that have appeared usually fail to secure a lasting place in the repertoire. Nevertheless, the book’s message is celebratory. Although most operas that remain alive and popular today were created in Europe’s distant past, opera as an art form remains remarkably vigorous and stimulating. It continues to transform people physically, mentally, emotionally and intellectually, expressing human experience in a way no other art form can achieve. The contents are in Czech.