No books are required for this course. Those who want to read in advance, however, will find a good number of general books on opera, some of which I mention below, but much fewer that specifically address the topic of the course. Roger Brunyate.

GENERAL HISTORIES. Since this course contains so many new or lesser-works, I have avoided the kind of book that just tells the best-known stories. The first two books here are more academic, but have a wide coverage. The second two are attractively presented and cast their net wide; I love the Boyden, but his recommendations are likely to be quite out of date; the Alan Riding book is copiously illustrated, and may well be the best introduction.

• GROUT, Donald and Hermine Weigel Williams. A Short History of Opera (4th edition, 2003)

• ABBATE, Carolyn and Roger Parker. A History of Opera (2015)

• BOYDEN, Matthew. The Rough Guide to Opera (4th edition, 2007)

• RIDING, Alan. Opera (DK Eyewitness Companion series, 2006)

POLITICS AND SOCIETY. I have used the first two books a lot in my preparation. Snowman writes about social history; he is easily readable, and covers a lot, but he is not especially original. Bokina is a political scientist, and somewhat academic in his writing; he is also quite selective in coverage, but full of striking insight. I have not yet seen the Robinson or Cohen books, but Robinson appears to address many of the ideas in this course, while Cohen covers only the first two centuries.

• SNOWMAN, Daniel. The Gilded Stage (2010)

• BOKINA, John. Opera and Politics, from Monteverdi to Henze (1997)

• ROBINSON, Paul A. Opera and Ideas, from Mozart to Strauss (1986)

• COHEN, Mitchell. The Politics of Opera: a History from Monteverdi to Mozart (2020)

ONLINE. The following are links to a few online articles, mostly of a more popular nature. Several of them contain links to videos which may no longer be operative, but you can easily look them up on YouTube. The Hibberd piece is probably the best introduction; follow it with the older Henanhan article, though, because he does a good job of dismissing many of the usual suspects. Ashley and Monahan pick five operas each, making 9 in all, 6 of which I shall touch on in the course. Finally, the two-part Kay article and the anonymous Chicago piece deal with new operas that have specifically political themes.

• HIBBERD, Sarah. Opera as Politics. (Barbican London, 2018)

• HENAHAN, Donal. Opera and Politics Make Strange Bedfellows. (NYT, 1986)

• ASHLEY, Tim. Five Great Operas that Have Dared to Take On the Establishment. (Guardian, 2014)

• MONAHAN, Maureen. Five Operas About Politics. (Mental Floss, 2013)

• KAY, Graeme. Opera and the Politics of Protest, Part 1. (Opera America, 2016)

• KAY, Graeme. Opera and the Politics of Protest, Part 2. (Opera America, 2016)

• [ANON]. Politics in Opera. (Chicago Lyric, 2020)