John W. Freeman - Böcker

Here at last is the definitive opera story collection, the only one now authorized by the Metropolitan Opera. Written by the associate editor of Opera News magazine, the volume includes the complete plots of 150 different operas, biographical information on all of the 72 composers represented, easy access to the stories through both a table of contents and an index, and a foreword by Peter Allen.

The opera-goer's indispensable guide. About to see Rossini’s William Tell, Verdi’s I Lombardi, Gluck’s Alceste, Philzner’s Palestrina, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The stories of these operas and 120 others are told, clearly and concisely, in this companion volume to the highly successful Metropolitan Open Stories of the Great Operas. Opera News associate editor John W. Freeman untangles and summarizes the often complicated plots and provides, in addition, an informative biographical sketch of each composer, world and U.S. premiere dates, lists of characters, and other background information. The works included here are selected from the repertory of European and American opera companies. They span more than three and one-half centuries, from Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (1640) to Philip Glass’s The Voyage (1992), and are set in venues as diverse as the legendary Palace of Time (Lully’s Atys) and twentieth-century Manhattan (Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X). The operas are arranged alphabetically by composer and indexed by all the usual versions of the title (e.g., Der Zigeunerbaron, The Gypsy Baron). Published jointly by the Metropolitan Opera Guild and W. W. Norton, the book is not only a most valuable resource but also, as Beverly Sills notes in her foreword, immense fun just to read.

Storms in Space is the story of the mysterious region between Earth and the Sun, where violent storms rage unseen by human eyes. Disruption of spacecraft and satellites, television transmission failures and power blackouts are just a few of the effects of this powerful force of nature, caused by the charged particles and electromagnetic fields that dominate space. This is a highly readable synopsis of man's understanding of the space environment. The book discusses the similarities between storms on Earth and in space, and goes on to describe the causes and effects of space storms, and how they can be monitored by satellites and from observatories on Earth. The forecasting of space storms is presented, along with prospects for improved models in the future. This clear and engaging book will be valuable to space scientists, physicists, astronomers and anyone with an interest in understanding the phenomenon of space weather.