Describes the stories behind the writing and creation of fifteen different operas, detailing the circumstances of each composer's life and times and the impact their environment had on their art.

"Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In [this book], Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate...

"User's guide to opera -- Matthew Aucoin, "the most promising operatic talent in a generation" (New York Times Magazine), describes the creation of his groundbreaking new work, Eurydice, and shares his reflections on the past, present, and future of opera"--

"What's Good is a work of passionate lyrical analysis, a set of freewheeling liner notes, and a love letter to the most vital American art form of the last half century. Over a series of short chapters, each centered on a different lyric, Daniel Levin Becker considers how rap's use of language operates and evolves at levels ranging from the local (slang, rhyme) to the analytical (quotation, transcription) to the philosophical (morality, criticism,...

"Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony explore the music of Copland and the cityscapes, landscapes, and social and political developments that shaped it"--Container.

"'I feel, therefore I am.' For Hector Berlioz, and for the Romantic movement he personified, those were words to live by. But with the unprecedented outpouring of emotion in his Symphonie fantastique he almost overpowered Paris. This orchestral sonic spectacular, written to win the heart of a beautiful actress, demanded sacrifice from its author and his audience. From romantic daydreams to deadly displays of devotion, the symphony relates an 'episode...

Picking up where he left off in "Finishing the Hat", Sondheim richly annotates his lyrics with personal and theatre history, discussions of his collaborations, and exacting, charming dissections of his work -- both the successes and the failures.

Music director Michael Tilson Thomas and the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony go from the salons of St. Petersburg to the villages where Stravinsky found inspiration in the earthy power of Russian folk music and dance. Thomas then retraces Stravinsky's journey to the cultural crossroads of pre-war Paris, where the composer collaborates with the great impresario Diaghilev and his star dancer Nijinsky to develop the shocking, erotic, and violent...