About 300 plots, covering the European repertoire and American musicals.
Premiere information is given along with the story. Another book by Ewen
includes fewer plots but adds more background facts: The Book of European
Light Opera(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1962); it has a useful
chronology and an aria index.- Martens, Frederick Herman.A Thousand and One Nights of Opera.New
York and London: Appleton, 1926. ix, 487p. Reprint, New York: Da Capo,
Seems to be the largest collection of plots (1,550 works), but ballets are
included as well as operas. Title and composer indexes.
- Melitz, Leo. Opera Goers’ Complete Guide. Rev. ed. New York: Garden City,
- xvii, 508p. MT95 .M31.
First edition, 1908. Plots and names of musical numbers (in English only),
with casting, for 268 works. Useful for many nonstandard inclusions, by such
composers as Adam, Auber (8 operas), Blech, Blockx, Breil, Breton, Cadman,
Erlanger, Goldmark (5), Massenet (10), and Pfitzner (3).
203.The Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas. Ed. John W. Freeman.
New York: Metropolitan Opera Guild, distributed by Norton, 1997. 2v. ISBN
0-393-01888-1, 0-393-04051-8. MT95 .M49.
Advertised as the only plot collection “authorized by the Metropolitan
Opera,” this set covers 275 works with biographical information on the com-
posers. - Newman, Ernest. Stories of Great Operas.New York: Vintage, 1958. 2v.
MT95 .N5.
Incorporates his Stories of Famous Operas, More Stories of Famous Operas,
and Seventeen Famous Operas.(For another, The Wagner Operas,see #2004.)
These are literate, detailed summaries of standard repertoire material, with
musical examples and background information. A dependable first-choice
reading for the works covered. - Payne, Alexis. Grand opéras du répertoire.Paris: Fayard, 1979. 574p. ISBN
2-213-00675-X. ML102 .O6 P346.
Detailed plots for about 120 operas, including the numerous works by French
composers, with lists of arias and numbers and background data. Indexes of
characters and titles and a chronological array. Also a list of theaters by coun-
try, with most names in original languages. - Renner, Hans. Renner’s Führer durch Oper, Operette, Musical: Das Bühnen-
repertoire der Gegenwart. 6th ed. Zurich: Atlantis, 1997. 728p. ISBN 3-254-
08203-0. MT95 .R423.
First edition, 1969, as Oper, Operette, Musical(Munich: Südwest). About 350
plots, reflective of the current German stage. Premiere information, facts about
the first German performance, synopsis, and commentary. Titles and arias are
identified in German only. Composer and title indexes.
Opera Plots 49