Spanning 400 years of musical drama, from the late Renaissance and including such classical masters as Verdi, Puccini, and Bizet, this is the complete visual guidebook to the great operas, their composers and performance history.Author Biography: Leslie-Dunton-Downer has written librettos for operas produced in Aspen, New York, Spoletto, and Moscow. Alan Riding is an opera devotee, as European Arts Correspondent for The New York Times, has attended scores of operas internationally, and is well known to many key players in today's world pf opera. Alan Riding and Leslie Dunton-Downer are also coauthors of DK's Essential Shakespeare Handbook.