William Ashbrook - Ashbrook As Opera Scholar

Ashbrook As Opera Scholar

Although William Ashbrook trained to be an English professor, he had a lifelong interest in Italian opera. In reference to his pioneering work in opera scholarship, musicologist Philip Gossett described him as "the father of us all" and his scholarly publications in the field of music far outshown his contributions in other areas.

He is best remembered for his 1965 biographical work on Donizetti and for the books The Operas of Puccini (1968; rev. 1985) and Donizetti and His Operas (1982), the latter described by Gossett as "for any serious study of a Donizetti opera today, it is with (this book) that one must begin".

Ashbrook was also a regular contributor to several classical music journals, magazines, and other publications, including Opera News, Opera, Donizetti Society Journal and the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He was editor of Opera Quarterly from 1993 to 1997.

Read more about this topic:  William Ashbrook

Famous quotes containing the words opera and/or scholar:

    I have witnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men. His duties lead him directly into the holy ground where other men’s aspirations only point. His successes are occasions of the purest joy to all men. Eyes is he to the blind; feet is he to the lame. His failures, if he is worthy, are inlets to higher advantages.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)