30–Second Opera: The 50 Crucial Concepts, Roles and Performers, each explained in Half a Minute

Live operatic performance was once part of popular culture, yet to the modern novice it can seem exclusive, overwhelming and, often, very very long.

In 30-Second Opera, music journalist Hugo Shirley takes the reader through the many building blocks that combine to bring the medium alive: its musical history, context and language, its composers, characters, and its performers. Broken down into 50 neat and effective 300 word entries, each submitted from a respected selection of opera buffs, this book will lift the curtain on the various elements of opera and open up a more informed way to listen, to understand, and above all to enjoy your experience of a performance.

Hugo Shirley is Opera Critic of The Spectator, a Deputy Editor of Opera Magazine and a critic for Gramophone and writes widely on music and opera. Having received his PhD from King's College London in 2011, he also maintains a profile in musicology as an Early Career Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and has published work in the Cambridge Opera Journal, The Journal of the Royal Musical Association and Music & Letters.