Operabase was conceived and designed by Mike Gibb, a professional software engineer. He manages the page in his spare time with the help of volunteer translators. Its main purpose is to list the performance schedules of 500 opera houses and opera festivals worldwide. He states in the biographical notes that “the amount of data that I can collect is limited to what is easily available to me through direct e‐mail/postings from the opera houses, through Opera America and the European Opera Network, through Websites or through the Liaisons Abroad ticket agency, or through data supplied by dedicated (and careful!) opera fans.” It not only includes the famous opera houses of the world, such as La Scala in Milan, or Covent Garden in London, but also includes many of the smaller opera companies such as Opera Pacific in Costa Mesa, California. This site has recently formed a partnership with Opera America, which represents 200 opera companies around the world. Thus, upon completion of the merger, the listings will be extensive.
The opening screen offers a choice of several languages: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. From there, the main menu appears. This database can be accessed either by an A to Z index by location or by clicking on a map. One can also use the search tool and can search the performance schedules by any combination of date, composer, title, and location. Singer/role, conductor, opera, or producer are other searchable fields. In each opera house listing, a choice can be made to search Current, being the current season, or All, being all the past performances at that house since the beginning of Operabase. Upon clicking on an opera listed, one sees the composer, play dates, sets, costumes, and cast. Also included is the address, telephone number, fax number, and email address of the opera house. There is information for ticket purchase, prices (if available), and the seating capacity of the house. Each house listed has links to other houses in neighbouring venues; and there are links to the opera houses’ home pages. A summary page of performances shows a month‐by‐month overview of what information is held in the database for each theatre.
There is a link from the main menu to CORPUS, the Coordinated Opera Resource Pages. CORPUS has links to Web sites with information on composers, operas, festivals, libretti, magazines, and general opera‐related resources. Also on this page are opera timelines, which consist of Early Opera (1600‐1810), French/Italian Opera (1810‐1928), and German/Russian/Czech Opera (1819‐1919). The News and Reviews of opera link to reviews of operas from The Times of London in English, and the Corriere della Sera of Milan in Italian. Included on the main menu are user preference settings for Currency for exchange rates, a Default Map setting, and a Graphics setting for full or minimal graphics. At the end of the page is a section for Comments, Corrections, and Congratulations; Acknowledgements; Biographical information on Mike Gibbs; and frequently asked questions about the site.
The interface has been well designed and is very easy to use. Users should have no problems navigating through the site. There is a button to activate frames, but none to deactivate them. I find it easier to navigate through the site without them.
Operabase is highly recommended as a valuable resource for those interested in opera or who would like to be. It should be bookmarked on the browser of any amateur or serious opera fan.
