Jacqueline Waeber is Associate Professor of Music at Duke University, North Carolina. As a musicologist, her research focuses on French musical culture, from the Baroque Era to early twentieth century. She is the editor of Musique et Geste en France de Lully à la Révolution (2009) and author of En musique dans le texte: Le mélodrame, de Rousseau à Schoenberg (2006).

• Preface and acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Part I. The Italian Foundations: 1. Opera is born: the wedding of music and drama in late Renaissance Florence Barbara Russano Hanning; 2. '…e poi le parole': towards a history of the libretto Tim Carter; 3. Aria, Recitative, and Chorus in Italian Opera Sara Elisa Stangalino; 4. Opera as spectacle, opera as drama Margaret Murata; Part II. Society, Institutions and Production: 5. Opera for a paying public (Italy c. 1637–c. 1700) Beth L. Glixon; 6. 'Una bella voce, un bel trillo, d un bel passaggio': opera singers in seventeenth-century Italy Colleen Reardon; 7. Opera, gender and voice Christine Jeanneret; 8. Dance and ballet Rebecca Harris-Warrick; 9. Staging opera in the seventeenth century Roger Savage; Part III. National Traditions (Outside Italy): 10. Opera in France c. 1640–c. 1710 Laura Naudeix; 11. Song and declamation in French opera Jacqueline Weber; 12. Opera in England Amanda Eubanks Winkler; 13. The development of opera in German Michael Maul; 14. Opera in Spain and the Spanish dominions in Italy and the Americas Louise K. Stein; Bibliography; Index.