Customer Reviews

Informative, but frustrating - By: , 31 Jul 2001
On four cassettes, the history of opera is recountedin a fairly entertaining way. The plus points are definitely the many nice anecdotes of the life & times of various composers. The best part is a 30 sec. recording from the early 20th century of a castrato voice singing Ave Maria. On the other hand, the very short excerpts of the opera pieces are very frustrating. In addition, the sung pieces are not really commented upon as far as interpretation & orchestration is concerned. Much of this history depends on the history of recorded music. Also, I found that disproportionate coverage was given to the 19th century giants, leaving out much of the lesser known, but maybe more interesting earlier worksin the Baroque period, but also those by Mozart, who is a little glossed over. The reader struggles quite a bit with German pronunciation, which can be annoying at times.