The Essence of Opera

absolute music accents action actor Alceste ancient aria artistic audience beautiful Beethoven Berlioz Bizet characters choruses comedy comic composer dialogue Don Giovanni duet ears effect emotions Epic Euripides everything expression Faust feelings Fidelio French genius genre Gluck Greek harmony hero human human voice idea imitation instrumental intention Italian Italian opera kind kithara L'histoire du soldat language letter librettist libretto listener Lully lyrical drama Mahagonny means melody Menelaus Metastasio modern Mozart musical drama Musical Quarterly musician nature never opera buffa Opéra-Comique orchestra Otello Paris passions performed piece play pleasure plot poem poet poetic poetry reason recitative Richard Wagner Rossini scene sense set to music sing singers Singspiel situation song sounds speak spectacle speech stage Stravinsky sung theater things tion tragedy Translated by Ulrich Tristan Turandot Ulrich Weisstein verses vocal voice Wagner words Wozzeck write wrote