LibGuides: MUR 126: Opera: Home

Social Sciences Librarian

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Contact:

585-273-5322
I am available for one-on-one virtual consultation through Zoom.

I also hold office hour on Mondays from 2 PM to 3 PM in the Gleason Hall Room 330. Walk-ins are welcome.

Zoom meeting only by appointment at https://rochester.zoom.us/my/kathywu

Related Sites

River Campus Libraries
Your link to the DiscoverUR, the library catalog and more, plus other information about the UR Libraries
CD and Sound Recording Search
This searches for sound recordings in the Art/Music library. There is also a link to Naxos Classical Music database, with free listening.
River Campus Music Department
SIbley Music Library homepage
Eastman School of Music
The Rest is Noise
Blog by the articulate author and music reviewer for The New Yorker magazine. Many good links to other blogs and music sites.
NYTimes Arts and Music
Current events and news in the arts world

Writing about Music

Writing and Citing Guide
Provides links to easy to use guides to citing in MLA, APA and other popular citation styles and resources to help you hone your writing skills.

Music in Words (print and ebook) by Trevor Herbert
ISBN: 0195373731
Publication Date: 2009-02-16
Music in Words is a compact guide to researching and writing about music, addressing all the issues that anyone who writes about music--from students to professional musicians and critics--may confront when putting together anything from brief program notes to a lengthy thesis. The book is awriting guide and a reference manual in one: the first part, a "how to" section, offers a clear explanation of the purpose of music research and how it is to be done, including basic introductions to the most necessary tools for musical inquiry (with special emphasis on strategic use of theinternet), and how they can be accessed and used. The second part is a compendium of information on style and sources for quick reference, including a straightforward presentation of the purpose and use of citation and reference systems as they are applied to and in music.
A Short Guide to Writing about Music by Jonathan Bellman
ISBN: 0321187911
Publication Date: 2006-04-20
A Short Guide to Writing about Music parallels musical skills to writing skills, examining a wide range of writing tasks for undergraduate and graduate courses. Intended for all writers on music -- college through budding professional -- and far more than a course textbook, this brief and inexpensive text coaches writers how to approach, research, and write about music. A Short Guide to Writing about Music is written in a clear and conversational style, and employs a variety of writing samples (both student and professional) as a means to illustrate effective writing.
Writing about Music by Richard Wingell
ISBN: 0136157785
Publication Date: 2007-12-29
Helping users write clear, convincing, persuasive prose on musical topics, this practical guide focuses on general writing issues as well as special challenges of writing about music-with clear, step-by-step explanations of the process of writing a paper. Updated to reflect the latest research methodology, resources, and technology, it continues to offer strong coverage on research, organization, drafting and editing-and includes a thorough section on basic writing skills.
Writing about Music (ebook) by D. Kern Holoman
ISBN: 0520281535
Publication Date: 2014-09-05
Where do you place the hyphen in "Beethoven" if it breaks between two lines? How do you cite John Coltrane's album A Love Supreme? Is it "premiere" or "première"? The answers and much more can be found in this definitive resource for authors, students, editors, concert producers--anyone who deals with music in print. Extending the principles devised for the classical repertoires, this revised and expanded edition now includes examples from world music, rock, jazz, popular music, and cinema. This essential volume covers some of the thorniest issues of musical discourse: how to go about describing musical works and procedures in prose, the rules for citations in notes and bibliography, and proper preparation of such materials as musical examples, tables, and illustrations.
Writing about Music by D. Kern Holoman
ISBN: 9780520958814
Publication Date: 2014-09-05

Writing and Citing Help at UR

Writing and Citing Guide
Provides links to easy to use guides to citing in MLA, APA and other popular citation styles and resources to help you hone your writing skills.
Writing Help from the Writing, Speaking and Argument Center
The Writing, Speaking and Argument Center can help you at any stage of the writing process. Whether you need a quick help sheet, or an appointment with a writing consultant, there are many resources available at here.

Books and resources for opera available on campus

Opera News
Online magazine with articles, reviews, features, and calendar items about opera in the US and around the world.
Operamania
A listing of opera websites

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Full text encyclopedia of all aspects of classical, contemporary, world, and popular music.
Create a personal profile to save content and annotations.

Cambridge Companion to eighteenth-century opera
Call Number: ML1704 .C36 2009
ISBN: 9780521873581
Cambridge Companion to grand opera by David Charlton, ed.
Call Number: ML1700 .C16 2003
ISBN: 0521641187
Fashions and Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera by Roberta Montemorra Marvin (Editor); Hilary Poriss (Editor)
Call Number: ML1733.4 .F27 2010
ISBN: 9780521889988
Publication Date: 2010-02-11
Operatic works by Italian composers of the nineteenth century have undergone countless transformations since their premieres, shifting shape in response to a variety of new geographic, temporal, technological, and performative contexts. These enduring works by Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini, and their contemporaries have myriad stories to tell. Fashions and Legacies reconstructs a selection of these stories, exploring ways in which operatic works have been reshaped and revived throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
The Great Opera Stars in Historic Photographs by James Camner (Editor)
Call Number: TR681.M8 G74 1978
ISBN: 0486235750
Publication Date: 1978-03-01
The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music by Jim Samson (Editor)
Call Number: ML196 .C17 2002
ISBN: 0521590175
Publication Date: 2001-12-03
This comprehensive overview of music in the nineteenth century draws on the most recent scholarship in the field. It avoids mere repertory surveys, focusing instead on issues which illuminate the subject in novel and interesting ways.

Additional Music Databases

Oxford Bibliographies Online--Music This link opens in a new window
Oxford Bibliographies in Music combines the best features of a high-level encyclopedia and a traditional bibliography in a style tailored to meet the needs of today’s online researchers. Each article, written and reviewed by top scholars in the field, is rich with citations and annotations, expert recommendations, and narrative pathways to the most important works for virtually all areas of music.
Met Opera on Demand This link opens in a new window
Instant access to more than 700 full-length Met performances with the online streaming database.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Streamed access to and information about Naxos recordings.
Classical, jazz, world, folk, and Chinese music are represented. Liner notes, as well as biographical information on composers and artists, are also available.
Naxos Jazz This link opens in a new window
The jazz/R&B/roots music portion of the catalog comprises the Fantasy group of labels (Pablo, Original Jazz Classics, Prestige, Milestone, Stax/Volt, Riverside, Jazzland, Specialty, Takoma, Kicking Mule, Debut, Contemporary/Good Time Jazz, Bluesville, and others).
RIPM Music Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Identifies articles on music published between the late 1700's and the 1950's. Complements RILM Music Abstracts.
Articles were published in Europe and the U.S. and may be in any of twelve languages.
Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology: DDM This link opens in a new window
Identifies dissertations-in-progress and completed dissertations reported since 1995, arranged by broad categories.
Music Industry Data This link opens in a new window
Presents over 60 years of data about music charts, popular, jazz, and classical styles.
Includes tools to analyze, compare and contrast artists, songs, trends, and statistics.

Digital Resources for Musicology
This website provides links to substantial open-access projects of use to musicians and musicologists.

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project This link opens in a new window
Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UCSB Libraries have created a digital collection of over 10,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online. On this site you will have the opportunity to find out more about the cylinder format, listen to thousands of musical and spoken selections from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and discover a little-known era of recorded sound.
Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) This link opens in a new window
The Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) is a not-for-profit streamed audio resource providing CD quality audio, complete and original liner notes and essays from New World Records, Composers Recordings, Inc. (CRI) and other important labels. DRAM offers on-demand, high-quality (192kbps/MP4) streaming access to complete works. DRAM is accessible only at the Eastman School of Music, but does not limit the number of users at any one time.
National Jukebox This link opens in a new window
The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. The Jukebox includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925.

DiscoverUR Catalog Search

Use the Catalog Search in DiscoverUR to search specifically for books or journal titles or other materials available at the University of Rochester Library. Use the full Articles, Books & More for searching for article authors and titles.

Need More?

WorldCat.org This link opens in a new window
Identifies and locates books and other materials owned by libraries in the Rochester region and nationally.
tags: firstsearch, first search, world cat, worldcat

Interlibrary Loan
Not finding the article or book you need in the library? Use this free service to obtain library resources. A pdf of an article is usually delivered in 24 - 48 hours.
Recommend a purchase
If you think the library should purchase a copy of a book, report, or other types of materials, please fill out this form to let us know. UR login required.

Interesting random opera and music stuff to explore

Operamania
A listing of opera websites
Opera News
Online magazine with articles, reviews, features, and calendar items about opera in the US and around the world.
Classical Voice North America
The online journal of the Music Critics Association of North America; lots of articles about music around the world.
NPR Deceptive Cadence
National Public Radio's classical music blog, with audio articles.
The rest is noise
Alex Ross writes for the New Yorker and this blog about all sorts of musical styles and happenings.
Sound expanse
a blog about experimental music by author Jennie Gottschalk

MUR 126: Opera: Home

Course Description

Welcome to the Art/Music Library