ABSTRACT

Based on the amount of information considered in the preceding pages, the idea of becoming an opera coach might seem an insurmountable hurdle. Opera is so vast an area (ranging from 1600 to the present) that the idea of encompassing all of these genres is daunting in the extreme. Certainly no book can hope to encompass all of the considerations necessary for any style or practice. But the repertoire is really rather slimmer than that. It embraces really only about fifty to seventy-five operas, with the others existing in the fringes through arias and ensembles. For example, a coach might do well at some point to learn the closing aria from Capriccio by Richard Strauss, but the chances of coaching that opera complete are far fewer. One might very well expect to find Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and Ariadne auf Naxos on an opera company’s plan. Even Arabella has really only come into its own in the last decade or two.