Mervyn Cooke is Professor of Music at the University of Nottingham. His books include studies of Britten's Billy Budd and War Requiem (Cambridge University Press), Britten and the Far East, Jazz, and The Chronicle of Jazz; he has also edited The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten and (with David Horn) The Cambridge Companion to Jazz. He is currently writing a history of film music for Cambridge University Press, and is a co-editor of the ongoing and critically acclaimed edition of Britten's correspondence published by Faber. He is also active as a pianist and composer, his compositions having been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Radio France, and performed at London's South Bank and St John's Smith Square.

• A chronology of twentieth-century opera Nigel Simeone; Part I. Legacies: 1. Opera in transition Arnold Whittall; 2. Wagner and beyond John Deathridge; 3. Puccini and the Italian tradition Virgilio Bernardoni; Part II. Trends: 4. Words and actions Caroline Harvey; 5. Symbolist opera: trials, triumphs, tributaries Philip Weller; 6. Expression and construction: the stage works of Schoenberg and Berg Alan Street; 7. Neo-classical opera Christopher Walton; Part III. Topographies: 8. France and the Mediterranean Nigel Simeone; 9. Austria and Germany, 1918–-1960 Guido Heldt; 10. Eastern Europe Rachel Beckles Willson; 11. Russian opera: between modernism and romanticism Marina Frolova-Walker; 12. American opera: innovation and tradition Elise K. Kirk; 13. Opera in England: taking the plunge Christopher Mark; Part IV. Directions: 14. Music theatre since the 1960s Robert Adlington; 15. Minimalist opera Arved Ashby; 16. Opera and film Mervyn Cooke; 17. Popular musical theatre (and film) Stephen Banfield; 18. Opera in the marketplace Nicholas Payne; 19. Technology and interpretation: aspects of 'modernism' Tom Sutcliffe.

'… gives readers a wealth of insight into the thriving world of opera in the last century.' Contemporary Review