From Great Composers author Michael Steen, a unique multi-platform project offering a royal box view into one of mankind’ s greatest art forms. From the soaring heights of Wagner’ s epic Ring cycle to the tear-jerking emotion of Mozart’ s breathtakingly beautiful Don Giovanni, opera is one of the most powerful artistic forms mankind has ever created. It should also be the most enjoyable! Michael Steen’ s The Lives and Times of the Great Composers was described as 'hugely informative and deliciously gossipy’ by the Spectator. Great Operas is his accessible and entertaining user’ s manual to making the best of an opera - whether at home or at a live performance, interspersing the key facts with erudite commentary from a man for whom opera is a lifetime’ s passion. Great Operas will be published initially as short eBooks focusing on individual operas - see examples, left - and then published as a physical compendium in November, covering twenty five stand-out operatic masterpieces. Great Operas will cover: Mozart’ s The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and The Magic Flute; Rossini’ s The Barber of Seville and La Cenerentola; Verdi’ s La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and Aïda; Donizetti’ s Lucia di Lammermoor and L’ Elisir d’ amore; Bizet’ s Carmen; Wagner’ s Tannhäuser and Tristan; Puccini’ s Madame Butterfly, La Bohème, Tosca and Turandot; Tchaikovsky’ s Eugene Onegin; Mascagni’ s Cavalleria Rusticana; Leoncavallo’ Pagliacci; Gounod’ s Faust; Johann Strauss’ s Die Fledermaus; Handel’ s Giulio Cesare and Britten’ s Peter Grimes. Many more Short Guides to a Great Opera are scheduled to follow as ebooks in 2013 and beyond.
