Grand Opera: Mirror of the Western Mind

Employing a remarkable combination of expertise in music, opera, and psychological insight, Eric Plaut explores the great operas and their composers from the time of the French Revolution to the onset of the First World War. He sees opera as the preeminent medium for expressing human willfulness, its characters driven by emotions of passionate intensity. The great composers of opera were also governed by their feelings and heavily influenced by the life of their time. Weaving together these...