The

VIKING OPERA GU I D E

Edited by AMANDA HOLDEN with NICHOLAS KENYON and STEPHEN WALSH

Preface by SIR COLIN DAVIS

One hundred distinguished contributors writing on over 800 composers and 1500 operas

'The most comprehensive user-friendly work of Its kind to appear In a single volume.' - Classical Music

'The Viking's achievement Is to provide just enough to give the accounts of great works the right weight, holding the balance between academic solidity and more fkkle artistic judgements ... a Kobbe for our age.'

- James Naughtie, The Times

'[It] succeeds In outdoing Opera Grove In Its sheer scope and practicality ... For an opera buff of any degree of obsessiveness, this Is an essential purchase.' - Andrew Clements, Guardian

'For Its range breadth, enthusiasm and common sense, Amanda Holden's labour of love Is already Irreplaceable.' - Dennis Marks, Observer

'Its scope as a single-volume dictionary of composers and their operatic works

[Is] unlikely ever to be surpassed.' - Opera Now

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