The Opera Lover′s Guide to Europe

The author, an American, has a very restricted view of operatic Europe: 150 pages, nearly half the total, are devoted to Italy and there is a reasonable coverage of Germany, but very little on what she considers the periphery, and nothing at all on Russia, Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. In England she notes only London, Glyndebourne and Aldeburgh, ignoring Opera North and Garsington among much else; even in London, she seems aware only of Covent Garden and English National Opera as still presenting opera, though she does mention other theatres that used to perform them regularly. As early...