Cross Index Title Guide to Opera and Operetta

The companion volume to the Cross Index Title Guide to Classical Music (Greenwood Press, 1987) contains more than 5,500 vocal and instrumental excerpts from over 1,400 operas and operettas by 535 composers from Monteverdi to the present. Each selection is listed by its popular title or subtitle and by its variant names in alphabetical order, and the name of the composer, the title of the larger work from which the piece derives, and the first line or first words are also given. Titles of excerpts from the standard opera repertoire are given in both English and the vernacular, and those from works little known or unperformed in the English-speaking world are listed in their language of origin.

The only reference of its kind, this expansive volume represents the most complete listing of excerpts from larger works to be published in any language. The compiler's introduction offers helpful information on the use of the guide; this information is presented in a clear and logically arranged format. Included are an alphabetical index of composers and their works, and a valuable list of principal sources that will aid the reader in locating printed editions and recordings of the operas and operettas as well as biographical information about the composers. Opera fans, record collectors, musicologists, students of music history, and librarians should find this guide useful in every respect.

STEVEN G. PALLAY is Record Cataloguer at the Edward Johnson Music Library, University of Toronto, Canada. His earlier works include Cross Index Title Guide to Classical Music (Greenwood Press, 1987).