A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas, the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S" words that reveal a "spectacular story!" With creative characters, humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's Christmas musical your kids will love performing.

THE STORY: In the 1930s, burlesque impresarios welcomed the hilarious comics and musical parodies of vaudeville to their decidedly lowbrow niche. A headliner called "the nance"—usually played by a straight man—was a stereotypically camp homosexual and master of comic double entendre. THE NANCE recreates the naughty, raucous world of burlesque's heyday and tells the backstage story of Chauncey Miles and his fellow performers. At a time when it was easy to play gay and dangerous to be gay, Chauncey's uproarious antics on the stage stand out in marked contrast to his offstage life.

The Metropolitan Opera on Record: A Discography of the Commercial Recordings is a comprehensive listing of all the commercial sound recordings involving the Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, one of the world's leading musical organizations. Over 900 recording sessions are listed chronologically, starting in 1906 and continuing through the last digital recordings conducted by James Levine in 1998. Entries include excerpts and complete recordings from more than 120 operas in various formats, representing more than 380 artists. The recordings are fully annotated, including the session date and location, the primary source of information, the opera title and composer, matrix number and speed of the recording, the artists performing, the recording company name and number, the format, and the release dates. In addition, Fellers provides a fascinating history of the Met recordings, from the first Leeds & Catlin recordings in the early 1900s to the digital recordings of the 1990s. Additional information on the Opera House String Orchestra and the Radio Broadcasts are included, as well as complete indexes listing the works by composer, title, and artist.

A guide to recordings of operas.

This book focuses on American opera singers and what their recordings say about their artistry. It is not a book about all American opera singers, since many who had important careers on stage, made few, if any, recordings. And many of those who did make recordings, did so prior to the introduction of electrical recording in 1925 (and the resulting advances in the reproduction of the human voice). Opera enthusiasts can only imagine the sound of Farinelli's voice or read what his contemporaries have written about it, but with almost any famous or near-famous singer of recent years, enthusiasts do not have to imagine. Their voices are available through the technology of sound recording. There are 53 entries, one each for 52 singers and a composite entry for a group of Hollywood vocalists. Each entry contains biographical information and is followed by a discography of operatic recordings to be used in conjunction with the critical commentaries. The entries are in alphabetical order by the singer's last name and provide critical analyses of key recordings and of the artists' gifts and limitations.