Mozart's Operas (A Centennial Book)

Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading for Any Opera Lover
Review: Absolutely essential reading for any lover of opera. By providing historical information and relevant social commentary, Daniel Heartz supplies all the tools necessary to truly appreciate the genius and wit of Mozart. This book transports the reader to new vantage points - making Mozart's operas all the more satisfying and enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Just one quibble.
Review: I'll echo what others have said, but there's one thing that did put me off, as a non-linguist and non-opera-singer. This is the author often quoting the text of various sung lines. He discusses the impact to plot and characterization and relationship with other related lines, and that's absolutely appropriate. But he does not provide an English translation of these foreign language lines in the various pages I sampled here on Amazon. I guess a person more versed in reading opera scores would have no problem, but for those of us who don't, that would have been a significant help in following the author's reasoning. It is the single thing that will keep me from buying this book.