Description: 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 Halévy 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.
Brief description: David Charlton is Professor of Music History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Gretry and the Growth of Opera-Comique (Cambridge, 1986), E. T. A. Hoffman's Musical Writings: Kreisleriana; The Poet and the Composer; Music Criticism (Cambridge, 1989) and most recently, French Opera 1730 1830 (2000).
Review Quotes: "[A] valuable addition to the 'Cambridge Companions to Music' series.... Highly recommended." Choice