cover image The National Trust Guide to Great Opera Houses in America

The National Trust Guide to Great Opera Houses in America

Karyl Lynn Zietz, Zietz. John Wiley & Sons, $40 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-471-14421-2

Operas were first performed in early-18th-century America in ""court rooms, warehouses, and makeshift halls."" These were ""ballad operas-comedies or farces interspersed with simple folk songs whose themes were borrowed from everyday life,"" says Karyl Lynn Zietz in The National Trust Guide to Great Opera Houses in America. By the early 19th century, audiences enjoyed opera buffa sung in English in the ""first grand opera houses"" constructed. Then, in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, works were produced in their original languages. As operas grew more spectacular, so did the houses. Although most of these original buildings have been destroyed, a few remain, such as the 1857 Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Zietz lists these early houses; the historic houses, by region; the latest additions; lost opera houses; and ends with an epilogue about preservation.