Articles, News, Reviews
Use BU Libraries Search which includes deep, full-text searches through many--though not all--publications accessible in our libraries.
The BULS search also pulls performing arts-related titles you may already have in mind,
- Opera News (recent decades only online, physical holdings for other years)
- Playbill
but with subject-special databases, so much else can be discovered, too:
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Music Index This link opens in a new window Locate citations and selected abstracts for articles and reviews of books, dissertations, recordings, and scores, that are featured in music periodicals. All music-related disciplines are covered. For 1948 through 1969 citations, use the Music Index in print annual volumes at the Music Library's Table 7.
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Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window The Music Periodicals Database features citations and selected full text of many (though by no means all) music periodicals. The database includes a number of music trade journals and magazines as well as referred scholarly music journals. Also includes a small selection of eBooks.
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Performing Arts Database This link opens in a new window Performing Arts Database locates citations for writings spanning the disciplines of theatre, dance, and music. These writings chiefly originate in subject-specific trade journals, magazines, and more established scholarly journals. Some full-text is included. Content is international in scope with the majority of the original content having been produced in the United States and Europe.
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RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window Use the RILM database to identify both in-depth and interdisciplinary writing about music. Conference reports, journal articles, festschriften, book chapters, recordings, critical editions, and reviews, are indexed and described in detail. RILM’s access is comprehensive for the current half-century and, increasingly, is expanding back well into the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals This link opens in a new window Use RIPM to help pinpoint citations and some full-text of music periodicals ranging from the early 19th through early 20th centuries. The Scope is international and systematically growing. RIPM is notable for its foreign language thesauri and its inclusion of even the smallest, but then-current, music circulars, newspapers, and other periodical publications.
and continue in interdisciplinary directions
- New York Times or more at Newspapers and New Media
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America: History & Life This link opens in a new window Covers the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada from prehistory to present times; indexes journal articles, book titles and chapters, reviews from numerous multilingual sources; all abstracts in English.
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Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window CMMC indexes journals covering communication, mass media, linguistics, discourse, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, communication theory, language, logic, organizational communication and other closely related fields of study.
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Literature Online This link opens in a new window LION includes texts, criticism, and reference material, including thousands of literary articles, essays, biographies and encyclopedia entries on over 350,000 works of poetry, prose, and drama from the 8th to the 21st century.
Books, Handbooks
Open stack ranges for book browsing include:
MT 955-956 production and staging; performance skills, preparation
ML 1707-2054 general and also specific works on opera, music theater
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American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle
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Location: Music Library Reference ML1711 .B67 2010Publication Date: 2010 -
The Cambridge Companion to the Musical
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The expanded and updated third edition of this acclaimed Companion provides an accessible, broadly based survey of one of the liveliest and most popular forms of musical performance. It ranges from the American musical of the nineteenth century to the most recent productions on Broadway, in London's West End, and many other venues.
Publication Date: 2017
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FAQ from Boosey & HawkesTheir FAQ pulls together questions that usually need to be addressed when preparing to produce opera regardless of publisher or source of performance material.
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Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window Typically known as "The Grove" after its most recent print version of 2001, its encyclopedic online content on people, works, terminology and sources, has been expanded to include both legacy and more recent publications of Grove Opera (1992), the Grove Jazz 2nd ed (2002), the AmeriGrove, and Grove Instruments. Notated music examples are embedded. Articles are selectively updated or added three times annually.
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Music Reference and Research Materials
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Location: Music Open Reserve ML113 .D83 1997Publication Date: 1997This handbook describes pre-1997 specialized reference works (we own most) for music. Consult its index p. 753 for music theater and p. 762 for opera. -
A History of Opera
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Location: ML1700 .A22 2015Publication Date: 2015 -
Off-Broadway Musicals since 1919
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In addition to essential data about each musical, the plot and score are described, the success (or lack of) is chronicled, and an opinionated commentary discusses the work's merits and influences.
Publication Date: 2011 -
A Short History of Opera (4th ed)
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When first published in 1947, A Short History of Opera immediately achieved international status as a classic. The fourth edition incorporates new scholarship that traces the most important developments in the evolution of musical drama. Its expanded scope investigates opera from Eastern European countries and Finland. The section on twentieth-century opera has been reorganized around national operatic traditions including a chapter devoted solely to opera in the United States, which incorporates material on the American musical and ties between classical opera and popular musical theater. A separate section on Chinese opera is also included.
Location: ML1700 .G83 2003 (and also in Music Open Reserve)Publication Date: 2003
Scouting for More: Cultural Heritage online archives
These open access portals link you to digital representations of original source material.
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Digital Public Library of AmericaThe DPLA pulls together American cultural content from museums, archives, and libraries (check for terms of use and re-use). Use it for images of productions, texts, programs, and some sound and video.
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EuropeanaEuropeana leads you to visual and media cultural evidence from archives, museums and libraries. Its reach include institutions from the UK, Eastern Europe and Russia. Check for terms of use and re-use). It's a tremendous source for images of costumes, stagings, programs, texts, radio, and other sound and video.
