The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera

A team of scholars and writers examines important Romantic operas and traces the origins and development of a style created during an increasingly technical age. The volume analyzes grand operas by Rossini, Auber, Meyerbeer and Halé vy and discusses grand opera in Russia and Germany, and the Czechoslovakian territories, Italy, Britain and the Americas. The volume includes an essay by the renowned opera director David Pountney.

1. Introduction David Charlton; Part I. The Resourcing of Grand Opera: 2. The 'machine' and the State Hervé Lacombe; 3. Fictions and librettos Nicholas White; 4. The spectacle of the past in grand opera Simon Williams; 5. The chorus James Parakilas; 6. Dance and dancers Marian Smith; 7. Roles, reputations, shadows: singers at the Opéra, 1828-49 Mary Ann Smart; Part II. Revaluation and the Twenty-first Century: 8. Directing grand opera: Rienzi and Guillaume Tell at the Vienna State Opera David Pountney; Part III. Grand Operas for Paris: 9. La Muette and her context Sarah Hibberd; 10. Scribe and Auber: constructing grand opera Herbert Schneider; 11. Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots Matthias Brzoska; 12. Meyerbeer: Le Prophète and L'Africaine John H. Roberts; 13. The grand operas of Fromental Halévy Diana R. Hallman; 14. From Rossini to Verdi M. Elizabeth C. Bartlett; 15. After 1850 at the Paris Opéra: institution and repertory Steven Huebner; Part IV. Transformations of Grand Opera: 16. Richard Wagner and the legacy of French grand opera Thomas Grey; 17. Grand opera in Russia: fragments Marina Frolova-Walker; 18. Grand opera among the Czechs Jan Smaczny; 19. Italian opera Fiamma Nicolodi; 20. Grand opera in Britain and the Americas Sarah Hibberd.