Cinema's illusions, opera's allure

by David P. Schroeder

"The invention of cinema was ingenious, so much so that virtually no one quite knew what to do with it. In its earliest stages, especially with the advent of the feature film, it needed models, and opera proved to be especially useful in this regard. The allure of opera to cinema early in the century held up through the silent era, into sound films, through the golden age of movies, and into the most recent approaches to cinema. This book explores the numerous ways - some predictable, some unexpected, and some bizarre - in which this has happened." "In Cinema's Illusions, Opera's Allure, David Schroeder provides a fascinating, well-researched and always entertaining account of the influence of one medium on another, and shows that opera can often be found lurking in the background (or booming in the foreground) of an impressive range of films."--BOOK JACKET.