The New Penguin Opera Guide

Rating:
Summary: It IS the best, but...
Review: On the back of "The New Penguin Opera Guide", it quotes an endorsement from the Boston Globe--"...The best one-volume opera guide...". This is absolutely the truth! I haven't seen another one volume opera guide that doesn't shamefacedly pale before this one! It covers composers and operas the others don't even get close to. It also includes information that is really valuable to a dedicated opera nut like me, such as premier places and dates, the name of the publishers and whether a full score or only a vocal score has been published, and a list of recordings.

Does all this praise mean I don't have any gripes? Far from it! Some of my complaints may reflect my own operatic interests, but others really are flaws. My thing is late romantic opera, so I can only comment on areas that I know.

First of all, while they've wisely chosen a wide range of experts to write the descriptions of the composers and operas in question, some composers are treated with much greater sympathy than others of a similar historical importance. For instance, most of the German expressionists make out quite well. Zemlinsky (who's one of my favorite composers)is reviewed by Antony Beaumont, who not only knows about Zemlinsky (he's written an excellent biography), but completed the orchestration of his final opera! You could hardly expect Beaumont to say "'Konig Kandaules' sucks!" On the other hand, it's hard to find a single verismo composer, Puccini excepted, for whom the guide has much sympathy...Giordano "lacks resoursefulness and inventiveness". Mascagni's creative impetus was "short-breathed and lacked continuity". Zandonai showed "dangerous signs of repeating himself". Montemezzi was a "relatively minor, conservative composer", who's later works are "disappointing...unassuming, and unadverterous". You get the idea. The guide also gives far more weight to modernist and recent works than their performance histories seem to justify, while neglecting important works by expressionist, verismo, and American romantic composers. Alfano's "Cyrano de Bergerac", which has two available recordings, and upcoming productions starring Roberto Alagna and Placido Domingo, doesn't have an entry. Neither do the operas of American composers Victor Herbert or Deems Taylor, though they were of some historical importance, and Taylor's works were popular successes. Henry K. Hadley, who's "Cleopatra's Night" was successful at the Met, isn't even included in the book. It also lacks a meaningful table of contents.

These things aside, this is a must have title for the serious opera fan. The CD-rom version of this book has even more information as well as some sound samples and more pictures.

Rating:
Summary: It IS the best, but...
Review: On the back of "The New Penguin Opera Guide", it quotes an endorsement from the Boston Globe--"...The best one-volume opera guide...". This is absolutely the truth! I haven't seen another one volume opera guide that doesn't shamefacedly pale before this one! It covers composers and operas the others don't even get close to. It also includes information that is really valuable to a dedicated opera nut like me, such as premier places and dates, the name of the publishers and whether a full score or only a vocal score has been published, and a list of recordings.

Does all this praise mean I don't have any gripes? Far from it! Some of my complaints may reflect my own operatic interests, but others really are flaws. My thing is late romantic opera, so I can only comment on areas that I know.

First of all, while they've wisely chosen a wide range of experts to write the descriptions of the composers and operas in question, some composers are treated with much greater sympathy than others of a similar historical importance. For instance, most of the German expressionists make out quite well. Zemlinsky (who's one of my favorite composers)is reviewed by Antony Beaumont, who not only knows about Zemlinsky (he's written an excellent biography), but completed the orchestration of his final opera! You could hardly expect Beaumont to say "'Konig Kandaules' sucks!" On the other hand, it's hard to find a single verismo composer, Puccini excepted, for whom the guide has much sympathy...Giordano "lacks resoursefulness and inventiveness". Mascagni's creative impetus was "short-breathed and lacked continuity". Zandonai showed "dangerous signs of repeating himself". Montemezzi was a "relatively minor, conservative composer", who's later works are "disappointing...unassuming, and unadverterous". You get the idea. The guide also gives far more weight to modernist and recent works than their performance histories seem to justify, while neglecting important works by expressionist, verismo, and American romantic composers. Alfano's "Cyrano de Bergerac", which has two available recordings, and upcoming productions starring Roberto Alagna and Placido Domingo, doesn't have an entry. Neither do the operas of American composers Victor Herbert or Deems Taylor, though they were of some historical importance, and Taylor's works were popular successes. Henry K. Hadley, who's "Cleopatra's Night" was successful at the Met, isn't even included in the book. It also lacks a meaningful table of contents.

These things aside, this is a must have title for the serious opera fan. The CD-rom version of this book has even more information as well as some sound samples and more pictures.

Rating:
Summary: An also-ran in a competitive and rich market
Review: This work, like a pro athlete on an off-day, turns out to be less than its glorious pedigree would suggest. It's okay, but nothing great. It's stuck in the in the no-man's land of opera guides for beginners and opera guides for long-time opera lovers, and as a consequence it will satisfy neither.

If you are new to opera, this book is a little bit too much, I feel. And if you've done a lot of reading about opera and/or listening to opera, this book won't have much new for you. To be honest, I was really disappointed.

Enough complaining. It's a perfectly sound, perfectly correct, perfectly sturdy guide. But too many other products are better. For beginning opera fan, read the Amazon.com reviews of Phil Goulding's "A Ticket to the Opera," the "Opera for Dummies" book, and Fred Plotkin's "Opera 101." For more advanced buffs, check out the reviews for Denis Forman's "A Night at the Opera." The multiple reviews will give you a good idea if one of those books would work for you.

Rating:
Summary: An also-ran in a competitive and rich market
Review: This work, like a pro athlete on an off-day, turns out to be less than its glorious pedigree would suggest. It's okay, but nothing great. It's stuck in the in the no-man's land of opera guides for beginners and opera guides for long-time opera lovers, and as a consequence it will satisfy neither.

If you are new to opera, this book is a little bit too much, I feel. And if you've done a lot of reading about opera and/or listening to opera, this book won't have much new for you. To be honest, I was really disappointed.

Enough complaining. It's a perfectly sound, perfectly correct, perfectly sturdy guide. But too many other products are better. For beginning opera fan, read the Amazon.com reviews of Phil Goulding's "A Ticket to the Opera," the "Opera for Dummies" book, and Fred Plotkin's "Opera 101." For more advanced buffs, check out the reviews for Denis Forman's "A Night at the Opera." The multiple reviews will give you a good idea if one of those books would work for you.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Years ago, I found a copy of "The Viking Opera Guide" on the shelves of a large bookstore. I was astonished by how superior it was to every other opera book I'd ever seen. I looked at the back and was discouraged by the price: .... But the book was so great I would have bought it anyhow, except the book was not in very good condition and I'm a stickler on that point. So I investigated a little further, and quickly discovered that the book was out of print! Why on earth, I wondered, since it was so obviously superior to any other book its size in print?

At any rate, I decided not to buy it, thinking that it was so good that another edition must be forthcoming. I waited a couple months to no avail. I broke down and decided to buy the soiled copy in the bookstore if it was still there. No such luck!

Now this "New Penguin Opera Guide" comes out, which is an abridgement of the original. I looked it over in a bookstore and saw immediately that it was just wonderful, albeit missing at least a third of the entries in the original Viking book. Nevertheless, at the level of my interest (complete works of Handel and Janacek, for example, but not some of the more obscure opera composers), it seemed to fulfil my craving for the original Viking book. So I bought it and I am greatly satisfied with it.

Still, my curiosity about the original Viking book remains. I searched Amazon for used copies. Imagine my dismay when I saw that the cheapest used example now goes for [price]! It is a collector's item priced considerably higher than its original price! So you can still get the original Viking in the used book market, but if the cost exceeds your means, this "New Penguin Opera Guide" is a worthy paperback substitute. It is a heavy volume printed on high quality paper and loaded with B&W photographs. It far exceeds its predecessor, "The Penguin Opera Guide" published in 1995. That also is an abridgement of the Viking, but it only contains about 25% of the original text and is printed on light-weight, poor quality paper. Nevertheless, what there is of the text of that edition is worthy, and it is light and small enough to stick it away on a trip to the opera. Not so this New edition, which is way too heavy and big to hide away in your coat pocket. For just browsing at home, I reiterate: it is wonderful -- until and if the original Viking is reprinted in its entirety.