Generous selection of tenor-range arias spans the 17th-century works of Purcell through the late 19th century. Featured composers include Purcell, Beethoven, Weber, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, and many others.

A premier singer and master teacher here tells other singers how to get the most from 151 famous arias selected for their popularity or their greatness from 66 operas, ranging in time and style from Christopher Gluck to Carlisle Floyd, from Mozart to Menotti. "The most memorable thrills in an opera singer's life," according to the author's Introduction, "may easily derive from the great arias in his or her repertoire." This book continues the work Martial Singher has done, in performances, in concerts, and in master classes and lessons, by drawing attention "not only to precise features of text, notes, and markings but also to psychological motivations and emotional impulses, to laughter and tears, to technical skills, to strokes of genius, and even here and there to variations from the original works that have proved to be fortunate." For each aria, the author gives the dramatic and musical context, advice about interpretation, and the lyric--with the original language (if it is not English) and an idiomatic American English translation, in parallel columns. The major operatic traditions--French, German, Italian, Russian, and American--are represented, as are the major voice types--soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, and bass. The dramatic context is not a mere summary of the plot but is a penetrating and often witty personality sketch of an operatic character in the midst of a situation. The musical context is presented with the dramatic situation in a cleverly integrated way. Suggestions about interpretation, often illustrated with musical notation and phonetic symbols, are interspersed among the author's explication of the music and the action. An overview of Martial Singher's approach--based on fifty years of experience on stage in a hundred roles and in class at four leading conservatories--is presented in his Introduction. As the reader approaches each opera discussed in this book, he or she experiences the feeling of participation in a rehearsal on stage under an urbane though demanding coach and director. The Interpretive Guide will be of value to professional singers as a source of reference or renewed inspiration and a memory refresher, to coaches for checking and broadening personal impressions, to young singers and students for learning, to teachers who have enjoyed less than a half century of experience, and to opera broadcast listeners and telecast viewers who want to understand what goes into the sounds and sights that delight them.

Drama, passion, a good dose of humour and, first and foremost, immortal melodies are the ingredients of the great masterpieces of Italian opera history. This collection of arias contains the most beautiful and popular solo pieces of music theatre in one volume each. A cross-section of the art of singing over three centuries.

This anthology of arias for tenors drawn from Oratorios and Cantatas is beautifully presented and clear to read. Wherever an aria was composed with a preceding recitative this has also been included. An essential collection for students and teachers, and an invaluable resource for professional singers. All the tenor oratorio repertoire for public examinations has been included. Contents include arias from: Vivaldi's Gloria RV 588; Bach's St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, Magnificat, Christmas Oratorio and Easter Oratorio; Handel's Dixit Dominus, L'Allegro, Messiah, Samson, Semele, Solomon, Hercules, Judas Maccabaeus, Jephtha; Haydn's Stabat Mater; C.P.E.Bach's Magnificat; Mendelssohn's St. Paul and Elijah; Verdi's Requiem, Rossini's Petite messe solennelle