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The Opera: A History

Christopher Headington
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE

Researched Bibliographic Dossier

Verified edition data and a musicological research note prepared specifically for this work.

Bodley Head / library catalogue records
Christopher Headington. The Opera: A History. London: The Bodley Head, 1987. ISBN 9780370308890.
Title
The Opera: A History
Author
Christopher Headington
Contributors
Roy Westbrook and Terry Barfoot
Publisher
The Bodley Head
Place
London
Year
1987
Extent
399 pages plus 24 pages of plates
ISBN
9780370308890
Language
English
Type
General history of opera

SCOPE & CONTENT

Headington’s volume is a broad historical survey intended to connect the development of opera as music, drama, institution and performance practice. It follows the genre from its early Italian foundations through national traditions, nineteenth-century expansion and modern repertory, balancing famous composers with the theatrical environments in which their works were produced. The book is designed for continuous reading but also includes bibliographic and index material that makes it useful as a reference overview.

RESEARCH VALUE

Its value in a research library is orientation rather than specialist novelty. A one-volume history can show large chronological relationships and help place an unfamiliar composer or opera within a wider sequence before the reader moves to monographs and source studies. Since opera historiography has changed considerably since 1987—especially in gender studies, colonial/postcolonial perspectives, performance studies and archival research—the book is also a useful benchmark for late twentieth-century general histories.

HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS

The survey’s strength is scale. It provides a continuous narrative across several centuries and traditions, allowing changes in vocal style, orchestration, theatre economics and dramatic convention to be seen as part of a single evolving art form.

USE WITH SPECIALIST SCHOLARSHIP

For detailed questions of source transmission, staging, politics or individual works, readers should move from this overview to more recent specialist literature. Its role is best understood as a map of the repertory and historical sequence.

DIGITAL ARCHIVE DATA
Catalogue completeness
8 / 10 core bibliographic fields
RECORD SOURCES Bodley Head / library catalogue recordsBodley Head / library catalogue records
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE ONLY — This researched record is kept independent from automatic PDF association; no archive file has been deleted or modified.