Here at last is the definitive opera story collection, the only one now authorized by the Metropolitan Opera. Written by the associate editor of Opera News magazine, the volume includes the complete plots of 150 different operas, biographical information on all of the 72 composers represented, easy access to the stories through both a table of contents and an index, and a foreword by Peter Allen.

Contains the plots of 150 of the world's most popular operas, short biographies of the 72 composers represented, plus background material pertinent to each work.

Millions of music lovers have heard the moving words of Father Owen Lee during the first intermissions of the Saturday afternoon operas broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His illuminating, intensely personal, immediately accessible half hours on the air have brought grateful letters from all parts of the United States, Canada, and Europe, from both first-time listeners and veterans of fifty years of Met broadcast listening. Now, First Intermissions makes available twenty-one of Father Lee's finest radio talks, analyses of some of the best loved operas in the repertoire, including masterworks by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, and Strauss.

This is a new release of the original 1943 edition.

An illustrated retelling of the plots of fifteen well-known operas.