The Opera Lover's Companion

First we had Kobbé (2000, latest ed.) and then, with an increasing interest in music arising from the availability of recorded music, a plethora of opera guides such as May (1977) and Martin (1962). As opera began to be ever more popular – even being used as theme songs for football competitions – we went down‐market and had the Rough Guide to the Opera (Boyden, 2002) and Opera for Dummies (Pogue and Speck, 1997). Now, at last, Charles Osborne, who previously had concentrated on individual composers and their operatic works, guides us through the classical...