Find Books
Books and articles will make up the core of your research. These textual sources contain the research of established scholars, and they can help you interpret the scores and performances you are studying. On this page, learn how to use OneSearch to find books, read about how books are organized on library shelves, and view recommended books you might consider for your research.
Finding Books in OneSearch
Use OneSearch to find books, scores, recordings, and other items held by Ball State University Libraries. OneSearch can be found at the front page of the Libraries website and operates like Google, Bing, and other search engines. Enter keywords to begin your search and then use the filters on the left side of the page to narrow down your results. Select the filter "Library Catalog" to limit your results to items owned by the Libraries, in either print or digital formats, and to eliminate web results.
To find books, select the filter "Book/eBook" under Content Type. Scrolling through results, most books will show as available either at Bracken Library and its Music Collection or as an eBook with Full Text Online. Click on the title or location of the book to see its full record, including its Summary and Contents. For print books, make note of its call number so that you can find it on the shelves. You might choose to keep a list of books either by their authors, titles, or call numbers.
For more information about OneSearch, see the research guide https://bsu.libguides.com/onesearch, or feel free to ask any Libraries staff member for help.
A call number is an item's address in a library. Just like you have a unique mailing address, each library item has its own unique call number. Also like the components of a mailing address (i.e., street name, zip code, etc.), each part of a call number means something. The first letter or two letters is called a subclass. In music, there are only three subclasses. M is the subclass for music scores. Music books are in either ML or MT. ML is the subclass for music literature while MT is the subclass for music instruction and study, so usually music education or theory. The digits which follow indicate the specific topic of the book or score within each subclass.
Typically two alphanumeric signifiers called cutters follow the subclass. Cutters often correspond to the author or composer's last name or derive from the subject or title of the work. The numbers which follow the letter then offer clues as to the next letters of that name or title. Scores by Bach, for example, might be cuttered as B3. This provides an alphabetical ordering for each topic. The final number in a call number, for example 1991, is typically the date of publication. You can practice your knowledge of call numbers with this tutorial.
The easiest way to find items in OneSearch is through a basic keyword search as described on the Getting Started tab. You might, however, choose to run an advanced search, if you are not finding your desired results through other means. Open advanced search by clicking “Advanced” either below the OneSearch dialog box or next to the magnifying glass. The main advantage of advanced search is the ability to separate terms and select fields. Use the dropdown to select field types like "Author," "Title," "Call Number," and "ISBN." Then use operators like "AND," "OR," and "NOT" to specify how your first term relates to your second. Use the plus sign to the right of the window to add terms.
In using advanced search, you unfortunately run the risk of eliminating some results before you have the chance to see them. This is especially true if you apply filters too early in your search process. For this reason, it is recommended that you wait to apply filters until after hitting search. Generally, it is better to start with too many results and then narrow them down through filters and stronger keywords, than to start with too few.
A keyword search is when you enter text of your choice into a search box, whether as a basic or advanced search. A subject search, however, uses standardized terms which are assigned to an item by librarians. These subjects are linked from record to record, so that every item with the same subject appears when you search that subject. On OneSearch, these subjects appear as red hyperlinked text and are typically found in the Details section of an item record. When you click on this text, OneSearch runs a subject search on this term to find every other record also assigned this subject.
Subject searching is useful when you wish to search comprehensively on a known term: you already found it in one record and now want to find it in others. It is also useful if your keyword fails to yield as many results as you had imagined, and it can help you determine the term more commonly used by scholars and librarians. You can also use hyperlinked text to search for every item held by a particular author or composer. Notice how subjects are structured and you will be able to modify subject searches to meet your specific needs.
How Books are Organized
The Music Collection at University Libraries uses Library of Congress Classification, or LCC, for organizing books and scores on the shelves. This system, maintained by the national library of the United States and utilized by libraries across the country and around the world, groups together items on similar subjects. Each item is then assigned a unique call number which combines alphabetical and numerical characters. These features are designed to make browsing library collections easier for users and librarians alike. Tip: Enter the first part of a call number into OneSearch to see all items in a given section.
Call Numbers for Opera:
ML 47 - 54.8 Librettos. Texts. Scenarios
ML 385 - 429 Biography
ML 410 Composers
ML 420 Singers
ML 429 Others, including managers
ML 1699 - 2110 History and criticism. Dramatic music
ML 1700 General works
ML 1702 - 1706 By period
ML 1710 - 1751 By region or country
ML 1711 United States
ML 1723 Austria
ML 1727 France
ML 1729 Germany
ML 1731 Great Britain
ML 1733 Italy
ML 1737 Russia
ML 1800 - 2100 Forms and types
ML 1800 Serious opera
ML 1850 Comic opera
ML 1900 Operetta
ML 2110 Libretto [studies]
ML 3857 - 3862 Aesthetics. Dramatic music
ML 3918.O64 Social and political aspects. Opera
MT 95 - 100 Analysis and appreciation. Dramatic music
Recommended Books
The recommended books below represent a wide sampling of topics in opera and include histories, source readings, stylistic analyses, and investigations into social issues. Perhaps one or more of these topics will inspire your next research project. Books are sorted by their call numbers for ease of browsing. Hover over the info icon to see a description. Also find specific series such as Cambridge Studies in Opera.
-
A History of Opera
by
A History of Opera, the first new, full-length, single-volume history of opera for more than a generation, provokes in-depth discussions of many works by the greatest opera composers, from Monteverdi, Handel, and Mozart to Verdi and Wagner, to Strauss, Puccini, Berg, and Britten. There are lively discussions of opera's social, political, and literary backgrounds, its economic circumstances, and the almost continual polemics that have accompanied its development through the centuries. Central to the book is an exploration of the tensions--between words and music, character and singer--that have always sustained and enlivened opera. In a polemical final chapter, Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker examine the problems that opera has faced in the last half century, when new works--once opera's lifeblood--have shrunk to a tiny minority and have largely failed to find a permanent place in the repertoire. Yet the book's message is one of celebration. Even if the majority of opera's most popular and enduring works were written in what is now a remote European past and in circumstances very different from our own, and even if the viability of contemporary opera is ever more in question, opera as an art form remains extraordinarily buoyant and challenging. It continues to transform people physically, emotionally, and intellectually, and to articulate human experience in ways no other art form can match.
Call Number: ML1700 .A22 2012Publication Date: 2012 -
The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera
by
This Companion celebrates the extraordinary riches of the twentieth-century operatic repertoire in a collection of specially commissioned essays written by a distinguished team of academics, critics and practitioners. Beginning with a discussion of the century's vital inheritance from late-romantic operatic traditions in Germany and Italy, the text embraces fresh investigations into various aspects of the genre in the modern age, with a comprehensive coverage of the work of individual composers from Debussy and Schoenberg to John Adams and Harrison Birtwistle. Traditional stylistic categorizations (including symbolism, expressionism, neo-classicism and minimalism) are reassessed from new critical perspectives, and the distinctive operatic traditions of Continental and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and United States are subjected to fresh scrutiny. The volume includes essays devoted to avant-garde music theatre, operettas and musicals, filmed opera, and ends with a discussion of the position of the genre in today's cultural marketplace.
Call Number: ML1700 .C17 2005Publication Date: 2005 -
The Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies
by
With its powerful combination of music and theatre, opera is one of the most complex and yet immediate of all art forms. Once opera was studied only as 'a stepchild of musicology', but in the past two decades opera studies have experienced an explosion of energy with the introduction of new approaches drawn from disciplines such as social anthropology and performance studies to media theory, genre theory, gender studies and reception history. Written by leading scholars in opera studies today, this Companion offers a wide-ranging guide to a rapidly expanding field of study and new ways of thinking about a rich and intriguing art form, placing opera back at the centre of our understanding of Western culture over the past 400 years. This book gives lovers of opera as well as those studying the subject a comprehensive approach to the many facets of opera in the past and today.
Call Number: ML1700 .C166 2012Publication Date: 2012 -
Opera
by
What is opera and how does it work? How has this dramatic form developed and what is its relevance in the modern world? Perfect for music students and opera-goers, this introductory guide addresses these questions and many more, exploring opera as a complete theatrical experience. Organised chronologically and avoiding technical musical terminology, the book clearly demonstrates how opera reflected and reacted to changes in the world around it. A special feature of the volume is the inclusion of illustrative tables throughout. These provide detailed, easy to follow analysis of arias, scenes and acts; visual guides to historical movements; and chronologies relating to genres and individual composers' works. Overall, the book fosters an understanding of opera as a living form as it encounters and uses material from an ever expanding repertoire in time, place and culture.
Call Number: ML1700 .C195 2012Publication Date: 2012 -
Phantasmagoria: A Sociology of Opera
by
This is an exploration of contemporary discourses and practices on and around opera as a cultural form. This text examines such areas as high art, popular entertainment and star performers. The main aim of the book is not to give a history of opera, or to be an encyclopaedia of opera, but to provide a comprehensive sociological account of opera's current socio-cultural standing, contemporary representations of opera and opera's fragmented incorporation into mass or popular commercial culture.
Call Number: ML1700 .E92 1999Publication Date: 1999 -
Opera in History: From Monteverdi to Cage
by
At a time of increasing interest in opera, Lindenberger examines some of the crucial issues that are embedded in its history. He focuses particularly on the 'Orientalism' of 19th and early 20th century opera.
Call Number: ML1700 .L54 1998Publication Date: 1998 -
Opera: A History in Documents
by
In Opera: A History in Documents, Piero Weiss presents a wide-ranging, vivid, and carefully researched tour of operatic history. A unique anthology of primary source material, this survey includes 115 chronologically organized selections--passages from private letters, public decrees, descriptions of first performances, portions of libretti, literary criticism and satire, newspaper reviews and articles, and poetry and fiction--from opera's late Renaissance infancy through modern times. This first-hand testimony allows students to experience the history of opera as eyewitnesses, offering an immediacy and validity unmatched by standard histories. Readers are transported to a Medici wedding in sixteenth-century Florence, to the Haymarket Theatre for a performance of Handel's Rinaldo, to Mozart at work on Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, and to Bertolt Brecht's writing desk, among many other landmarks in opera's history. Weiss expertly guides students, providing highly accessible headnotes to each selection that both contextualize the excerpts and position them within the broader historical narrative. In addition, he offers original translations of more than half of the selections in the book, many of which appear here in English for the first time. Stage settings, costumes, portraits, contemporary playbills, and other illustrations enliven the text and help to recreate the feel of the era under discussion. Opera: A History in Documents is an intrinsically lively text that will enrich college courses on opera and delight any music-loving reader.
Call Number: ML1700 .O644 2002Publication Date: 2002 -
The Oxford Handbook of Opera
by
What is opera? Contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Opera respond to this deceptively simple question with a rich and compelling exploration of opera's adaption to changing artistic and political currents. Fifty of the world's most respected scholars cast opera as a fluid entity that continuously reinvents itself in a reflection of its patrons, audience, and creators. The synergy of power, performance, and identity recurs thematically throughout the volume's major topics: "Words, Music, and Meaning"; "Performance and Production"; "Opera and Society"; and "Transmission and Reception." Individual essays engage with repertoire from Monteverdi, Mozart, and Meyerbeer to Strauss, Henze, and Adams in studies of composition, national identity, transmission, reception, sources, media, iconography, humanism, the art of collecting, theory, analysis, commerce, singers, directors, criticism, editions, politics, staging, race, and gender.
Call Number: ML1700 .O916 2014Publication Date: 2014 -
The Chronicle of Opera, Revised Edition
by
The Chronicle of Opera celebrates four centuries of music and performance, mixing facts and anecdotes, personalities and stylistic development with hundreds of illustrations.
Call Number: ML1700 .R34 2007Publication Date: 2007 -
The Gilded Stage: A Social History of Opera
by
From opera's beginnings in the courts of northern Italy, to its spread across Europe and the world, The Gilded Stage explores the world of opera houses and impresarios, monarchs and money makers, artists and audiences. On this operatic Grand Tour, Daniel Snowman leads us through Renaissance Florence and Mantua, the Paris of Louis XIV, Handel's London and the Vienna of the Emperor Joseph II and Mozart. By the nineteenth century, opera was no longer a European monopoly and Daniel Snowman follows Mozart's librettist and Rossini's first Count Almaviva to New York and beyond, catching glimpses of performances alongside the bravado and bawdiness of the American and Australian frontiers, where Gold Rush millionaires flaunted their flamboyant claims to high culture. Towards the end of the century a WASP patron of New York's Metropolitan Opera could watch a French work sung by a Czech, Polish and Italian cast led by a German conductor. Twenty years later, Caruso sang Puccini in Havana and Toscanini performed Wagner in Buenos Aires. Nevertheless, even Caruso and Toscanini could scarcely have imagined the global reach of opera in our own times. More opera is performed, financed, seen, heard, filmed and broadcast than ever before, and the world's leading performers are worshipped and paid like pop stars. Yet the art form is widely derided as 'elitist' and parts of the classical recording business appear close to bankruptcy. However, as Daniel Snowman reveals, the world of opera has always known crisis and uncertainty - and the resulting struggles have often proved every bit as dramatic as those portrayed onstage.
Call Number: ML1700 .S66 2009Publication Date: 2009 -
American Opera
by
Tired of Tannhauser? Bored with Boheme? Then open your imagination to the unexpected pleasures of American opera. With this generous, accessible overview, Elise K. Kirk provides a lively history of one of America's liveliest arts. A treasure trove of information on a substantial, heretofore neglected repertoire, American Opera sketches musical traits and provides plot summaries, descriptions of sets and stagings, and biographical details on performers, composers, and librettists for more than 100 American operas, many of which have received unjustifiably scant attention since their premieres. From the spectacle and melodrama of William Dunlap's Pizarro in Peru (1800) and the pathos of Caryl Florio's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1882) to the chilling psychological drama of Jack Beeson's Lizzie Borden (1965) and the lyric elegance of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles (1991), opera in America displays the energy and diversity of the nation itself. Kirk shows that this rich, varied repertoire includes far more than familiar jewels such as Porgy and Bess, Candide, Susannah, and The Consul. Beginning with the English-influenced harlequinade of the revolutionary period, Kirk traces the development of comic opera, the rise of melodramatic romanticism, the emergence of American grand opera and verismo, and the explosion of eclectic forms that characterized American opera in the twentieth century. Devoting particular attention to the accomplishments of women and black composers and librettists, Kirk explores how American operas have incorporated indigenous elements such as jazz, popular song, folk music, Native American motifs, and Hollywood's cinematic techniques. She also discusses the impact of radio and television broadcasting on opera in America, the advent of opera workshops in universities, the integration of multimedia effects into recent opera productions, and innovations such as co-commissioning and joint staging that have helped sustain American opera as federal support has declined. An engaging introduction for neophytes, American Opera also offers an array of welcome surprises for diehard opera fans.
Call Number: ML1711 .K56 2001Publication Date: 2001 -
French Opera: A Short History
by
French opera is second only to Italian opera in the length, breadth, and diversity of its history. Yet most people, if asked to come up with titles, could mention only a handful of titles--Carmen, Faust, Pelleas et Melisande, Samson et Dalila--a small list for an operatic tradition that began in the seventeenth century and is still very much alive. This book provides a full, single-volume account of opera in France from its origins to the present day. Vincent Giroud looks at the leading composers, from Lully to Messiaen and beyond; at the development of French operatic form and style; at performance, performers, and audience; and at the impact of French opera beyond France's borders. Lovers of opera will find this an ideal companion to their appreciation of the form.
Call Number: ML1727 .G57 2010Publication Date: 2010 -
German Opera: From the Beginnings to Wagner
by
German opera from its primitive origins up to Wagner is the subject of this wide-ranging history. It traces the growth of the humble Singspiel into a vehicle for the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, together with the persistent attempts at German Grand Opera. Seventeenth-century Hamburg opera, the role of the travelling companies and Viennese Singspiel are all explored. Discussions that from early days absorbed Germans concerned for the development of a national art are followed, together with the influence of new critical thought at the start of the nineteenth century. The many operas studied are placed in their historical, social and theatrical context, and attention is paid to the literary, artistic and philosophical ideas that made them part of the country's intellectual history. Warrack assesses the contributions of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, as well as Weber and Hoffmann, among others.
Call Number: ML1729 .W37 2001Publication Date: 2001 -
Opera as Drama
by
"Throughout the history of opera, if not quite continuously, there have been some who have taken opera's dramatic potential seriously and others who have not. It seems to be the case that over the last thirty years Opera as Drama has helped keep the serious position alive. I hope it will continue to do so in this new edition." -- From the foreword to the new edition. Passionate, witty, brilliant, Opera as Drama, although published over thirty years ago, remains one of the most controversial, thought-provoking, and entertaining works of operatic criticism ever written. For this new edition, the first since the book's original publication, the author has prepared a new foreword and provided emendations and additions that take into account some of the critical reaction to the book. He has also added a new chapter on operatic criticism. Updated yet still retaining the verve of the original, this new edition will be indispensable reading for all students and lovers of opera.
Call Number: ML3858 .K4 1988Publication Date: 1988 -
What to Listen for in Opera: An Introductory Handbook
by
Covering famous operas from 14 Italian, French, and German composers, this handbook is designed to help listeners understand and appreciate the special skills required to sing famous operatic songs. The book includes a plot synopsis of each opera with information about each song, which are introduced in their dramatic settings along with the vocal requirements for the most demanding passages. Interactive literary and rhyming exercises help the reader become more engaged and knowledgeable. Foreign language passages are translated into English and key words are highlighted in each language. The operatic vocabulary is defined to help the listener better understand the technical demands for a highly trained voice. The book is designed as a useful handbook for both experienced and beginning opera listeners. Appendices provide information on singers, recordings and useful references.
Call Number: MT95 .B45 2014Publication Date: 2014
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.