Böcker av John Louis Digaetani

Maria Callas was, perhaps, the greatest opera singer of the 20th century. Hers was a life lived on the world stage. This biography of Callas tells her story from difficult beginnings as the daughter of Greek immigrants to New York City in 1923 to her performances at La Scala, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera.

In its revised third edition, this volume argues that an appreciation of opera is based on an understanding of several key aspects: history, language, theatrical production, the power of the conductor, vocal tradition and standard repertory. The author discusses how opera has changed in the last three decades and how it is now more easily enjoyed than ever before.

Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) is best known for his plays that have famously been adapted into opera librettos. Puccini's final opera, Turandot, was based on a play by Gozzi. Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges is also based on a Gozzi play. Richard Wagner's first opera, Die Feen, is based on Gozzi's La Donna Serpente. Mozart's The Magic Flute contains many elements that are similar to Gozzi's plays. Gozzi is well known for reviving commedia dell'arte, an ancient form of Italian improvisational theater that had fallen out of favor before his time. This is the first full biography in English of the most successful playwright in 18th century Venice.

This investigation of the suicidal themes in Wagner's life and operas shows how manic-depressive illness, particularly the depressive, affected Wagner's life and art. It also analyzes the influence of Giambattista Vico's theories of cycles, and suicide as a theatrical and operatic phenomenon.

A reference companion to the life and career of Luigi Pirandello, covering his plays, novels and short stories, as well as translations of his poems. Background information provided include surveys on Italian theatre before Pirandello and the surrealism in his work.

Thirty-three leading American and British playwrights, from Robert Anderson to Paul Zindel, discuss their views on their own work and contemporary drama, and offer projections about theater for the 21st century.