Excerpt from The Standard Operas: Their Plots, Their Music, and Their Composers; A Handbook Being to give musically uneducated lovers of opera a clear understanding of the works they are likely to hear, and thus heighten their enjoyment. In a word, the operas are described rather than criticised. And the work is presented with as much thorough ness as seemed possible considering the necessarily brief space allotted to each. In the preparation of the Handbook, the compiler acknowledges his indebt edness to Grove's excellent Dictionary of Music for dates and other statistical information and he has also made free use of standard musical works in his library for historical events connected with the per formance and composition of the operas. It only remains to submit this work to opera-goers with the hope that it may add to their enjoyment and prove a valuable addition to their libraries. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.