Reclam's operetta guide
Reclam's Operetta Guide is a widely used music guide. It was first published in 1953 by Philipp Reclam jun. in Stuttgart . The current 24th edition was published in 2011 and has a total of 351 pages. The author Anton Würz was a musicologist , music critic and author of various specialist publications in the musical field.
Structure and content
The operetta guide contains a foreword that takes up one page, the large lexical part, an alphabetical index, separated according to composer and the works discussed, and ends with a picture credit.
In the foreword, the author mentions, among other things, that since the operetta guide was published, the American musical has increased its distribution and popularity in the German-speaking world and that the publisher has therefore now dedicated its own guide ( Reclams musical guide ) to this newer musical genre , which is why there is none in the operetta guide Musicals are discussed more. Even so, the operetta still has numerous fans and is spread on stages, on television and on the radio.
The lexicon section contains brief biographical descriptions of the composers and their most famous operettas . It is arranged in such a way that the composers are treated chronologically according to their date of birth and the works they have written are discussed in the order of their respective premieres. Josef Lanner, born in 1801, starts with Alt-Wien (this operetta was only compiled from his melodies by someone else long after Lanner's death), and at the end there is Paul Burkhard, born in 1911, with his fireworks . A total of 105 works are discussed. Each work description begins with the genre chosen by the composer (for example, many composers have not called their work an operetta , but a singspiel or musical comedy ), the day and place of the premiere , the characters and usually the voices assigned to them as well as a detailed synopsis. This is all loosened up by 16 interspersed color photos, usually of recent performances by well-known Austrian and German theaters.
A new edition is not expected in the foreseeable future because no new works in this genre have been created since the 1960s.
In the Reclam publishing house there is also an edition which combines the operetta guide with the operetta guide to form a double guide .
literature
- Anton Würz: Reclam's operetta guide . 24th edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-15-010834-5 .
- Rolf Fath and Anton Würz: Reclam's opera and operetta guides . Reclam, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-15-010513-7