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THE STANDARD OPERAS. Their Plots, their Music, and their Composers. By GEORGE P. UPTON, author of "Woman in Music," etc., etc.
"Mr. Upton has performed a service that can hardly be too highly appreciated, in collecting the plots, music, and the composers of the standard operas, to the number of sixty-four, and bringing them together in one perfectly arranged volume.... His work is one simply invaluable to the general reading public. Technicalities are avoided, the aim being to give to musically uneducated lovers of the opera a clear understanding of the works they hear. It is description, not criticism, and calculated to greatly increase the intelligent enjoyment of music."--_Boston Traveller_.
"Among the multitude of handbooks which are published every year, and are described by easy-going writers of book-notices as supplying a long-felt want, we know of none which so completely carries out the intention of the writer as 'The Standard Operas,' by Mr. George P. Upton, whose object is to present to his readers a comprehensive sketch of each of the operas contained in the modern repertory.... There are thousands of music-loving people who will be glad to have the kind of knowledge which Mr. Upton has collected for their benefit, and has cast in a clear and compact form."--_R. H. Stoddard, in "Evening Mail and Express" (New York)_.
"The summaries of the plots are so clear, logical, and well written, that one can read them with real pleasure, which cannot be said of the ordinary operatic synopses. But the most important circumstance is that Mr. Upton's book is fully abreast of the times."--_The Nation (New York)_.