Richard Strauss in Capriccio and Salieri in Prima la musica e poi la parole (First the music, then the words) created operas to tackle the tension between the importance of words versus music in Opera. Neither one resolved the issue. The authors of this book have no doubt what is more important, the words. The book is brilliantly written about the text, the plot and the story of the operas it mentions. From their perspective, the music is there only to serve the text, and it is minimally mentioned through out the book.



I would argue that good Operas, in particular those dealing with death (or fear of death) and/or love, the most recurrent themes in Opera, allows us to comprehend or at least sense through the music what words can not explain.



This book brilliantly and with plenty of examples, describes the literary aspects of death in opera. It is informative and easy to follow. The music half of the book is missing...