Lee Owen M. A Season of Opera: From Orpheus to Ariadne

University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2000. — 254 p.: musical examples.Father Owen Lee is internationally known for his intermission commentaries featured during the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. A Season of Opera: From Orpheus to Ariadne gathers together for the first time Father Lee's best broadcast and cassette commentaries, public lectures, and articles on twenty-three works for the musical stage. The essays range from the pioneering Orpheus of Monteverdi to the forward-looking Ariadne of Richard Strauss.Included are Father Lee's famous discussions of Mozart's Magic Flute and Beethoven's Fidelio, Verdi's La Traviata and Falstaff, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, and Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. The concluding chapter, originally published as the lead article in The Opera Quarterly's special issue on the end of the twentieth century, is a thought-provoking forecast of opera's future. Recommendations for further reading, CD recordings, and videos are also included.Opera Canada has applauded Father Lee's 'extraordinary ability to engage, challenge, and enlighten a vast and diverse audience' and called his learning-worn-lightly commentaries 'a unique mix of spiritual empathy, classical scholarship, and psychological insight.' Opera lovers, or anyone interested in psychology and mythology, humanities and comparative literature, or the art of the essay will welcome this book.The Birth of Opera from the Spirit of Orpheus
Du Musst dein Leben Andern: Orfeo and Evridice
The Opera of All Operas: Don Giovanni
The Music of Intuitive Angels: The Magic Flute
Music to Set the Spirirt Free: Fidelio
Show Business Sense:L'Elisir d'Amore
Oh, Sweet Music of Donizetti ! Lucia di Lammermoor
Elemental. Furious, Wholly True: Il Trovatore
The Requiste Miracle: La Traviata
The Whole Checkered Play of Life: La Forza del Destino
Melt Egypt into Nile: Aida
A Figure as Old Comedy: Falstaff
The Exasperated Eagle and the Stoic Saint: Les Troyens
The Sins of Wagner's Youth: Rienzi
Long Day's Journey into Night: Tristan und Isolde
The Making of Musical Legend: Palestrina
The Moon is Like the Moon: Salome
Genius and Morbidezza:Manon Lescaut
Mists, Sails, Sounds, and Impressions: Pelleas et Melisande
It Is Your Turn to Speak: Dialogues des Carmelites
An Opera Made of Songs: Porgy and Bess
The Music Wrote Itself: Oklahoma!
Hurry Up Please Its Time
Further Reading
Recordings and Video