EARLY IN THE 1940s, Donald Grout recognized the need for a book that had “for its purpose to offer a comprehensive report on the present state of our knowledge about the history of opera.”1 He filled that need with the 1947 publication of A Short History of Opera. A second, revised and expanded, edition was published in 1965.2
After retiring from Cornell University as Given Foundation Professor of Musicology Emeritus, Grout prepared several more editions of his History of Western Music and edited for publication a representative sample of Alessandro Scarlatti’s operas. He also kept alive a deep desire to bring forth a third edition of his opera history. Unfortunately ill health prevented him from undertaking that project, and although his name appears along with mine as a signature to the preface of the third edition of the opera history, the responsibility for the writing of that 1988 edition was mine alone. Grout did not live to see the third edition in print; he died in March 1987.
The present volume has been greatly revised and expanded in light of scholarly research of the past fifteen years. Part VI has been reorganized to conform to the pattern established for the other sections of the book, with its five chapters devoted to particular geographical regions as viewed from a perspective of the entire twentieth century. Greater emphasis has been placed on material related to national traditions other than those of France, Germany, and Italy, and an entire chapter is devoted to opera in the United States. The section on Chinese opera previously included in Part V is now in the appendix.
To preserve a degree of continuity between the third and fourth editions, musical examples of the former have, for the most part, been retained; several new examples have also been added. Dates of operas refer to first performances unless otherwise specified. Places of performances are indicated sparingly. With few exceptions, translations of French, Italian, and German opera titles have been omitted from the text; they now appear only in the index. Opera titles in other languages, however, are translated in the text and are included in the index as well.3
The bibliography is limited to works mentioned in the footnotes. Books that cover more than one chronological period are listed in the general section of the bibliography and in the section where they are cited in the notes.
I am indebted to friends and colleagues for help at various stages in the preparation of this edition. Particular thanks are due to Dr. Wolf-Dieter Seiffert, president of G. Henle Verlag; Ilkka Kalliomaa and the Finnish Consulate in New York City for information about operas by Finnish composers; Mirja Kiiveri of the Savonlinna Opera Festival and Hanna Fontana of the Finnish National Opera for photographs; Michael Willis of Glimmerglass Opera for providing several photographs of twentieth-century opera productions; Wendy Hillhouse for a photograph of a 1982 production of Scarlatti’s The Trimph of Honor; Joan Wolek and the staff of the Hamilton College Library for securing interlibrary materials; Anne R. Gibbons for her careful editing of the manuscript; members of the editorial staff at Columbia University Press for their guidance and encouragement; and my husband, Jay, for his unfailing support of my musicological endeavors.
Permission to print music examples is acknowledged in the section “Sources and Translations of Musical Examples.” Special acknowledgment, however, is made here to the following publishers for permission to use copyrighted material for new examples in this edition: G. Henle Verlag, Munich (Ex. 16.1), Warner Bros. Publications (Ex. 20.2), and European American Music Distributors LLC (Ex. 26.8a). Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the following for permission to use copyrighted material for the illustrations: Ron Scherl; George Mott and Glimmerglass Opera; Mara Eggert and the John Cage Trust; Kari Hakli and the Finnish National Opera; and Kuvasuomi Ky Matti Kolho and the Savonlinna Opera Festival.
Hermine Weigel Williams
Clinton, New York
January 2002
That day the sky was cloudless; the wind blew softly where we sat. Above us stretched in its hugeness the vault and compass of the World; around us crowded in green newness the myriad tribes of Spring. Here chimed around us every music that can soothe the ear; was spread before us every color that can delight the eye. Yet we were sad. For it is so with all men: a little while (some by the fireside talking of homely matters with their friends, others by wild ecstasies of mystic thought swept far beyond the boundaries of carnal life) they may be easy and forget their doom. But soon their fancy strays; they grow dull and listless, for they are fallen to thinking that all these things which so mightily pleased them will in the space of a nod be old things of yesterday.
WANG XI-CHI (353 C.E.)
1. Grout, “Preface to the First Edition,” reprinted in A Short History of Opera (1988 edition), xvii.
2. The 1947 and 1965 editions were issued in both a two-volume format with illustrations and a one-volume format without illustrations. They also appeared in several foreign language editions.
3. There are, however, a number of titles for which a suitable translation could not be provided, given the idiomatic nature of the original.