Opera Overtures & Incidental Music

"Typically, the overture (sometimes called the prelude) sets the stage for what we are about to witness. By the time it is finished, the overture will, ideally, have drawn us (the audience) into the mood and feeling of the opening scene. But the function of the overture is actually far more complicated than that. While setting us in the right direction at the start of the piece, the overture, because it is frequently comprised of quotations from arias sung throughout the work, essentially presents us with a synopsis of the entire piece, foreshadowing both the rapture and the doom that are to follow. We don't get the general train of events -- for that, we need something like Milton Cross or Kim Thompson's film All the Great Operas (in ten minutes) -- but we do get the emotional contours of the work" (CD notes by Jackson Braider).

View catalog record here!