Historically, my favorite two places to visit have been libraries and hardware stores, with bookstores close behind. Our son grew up an avid reader and a lover of bookstores. In our travels we always keep an eye out for bookstores, in particular used bookstores. Just this past year, we visited The Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, Baldwin’s Book Barn in West Chester, Powell’s Books in Portland, and Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires, and we were enriched by each…..at relatively modest amounts of money. Yesterday, we drove out to Manassas, had a solid breakfast at Cracker Barrel and visited McKay Used Books, a supermarket of used books, music, movies, and novelty items. There are many excellent used book shops in the DC area. I always expect there to be only a limited selection of books on opera, but in such a large shop as McKay’s, I was surprised to find only three books on opera. Nonetheless, one of the three piqued my interest: The Simon & Schuster Book of the Opera.
For me, visiting a used bookstore bears an esthetic of visiting a graveyard, but these evolving mausoleums are special, not morbid. Rather than entrenched tombstones listing names and dates of existence, these tomes can be purchased and brought back to life once more – think of your power. Wandering about, one sees in text and clever jacket design not only the name of the deceased but the art that consumed their lives and connected with their readers. It is a special pleasure to be immersed in so much intelligence, talent, creativity, and humanity, so great a longing to share and be understood, and strive for fame and a little money. In a used bookshop there are a variety of titles not seen in most new bookstores, the shelves of used bookstores offering “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”. Don’t eschew the less well-known volumes too quickly. They meant something at some point to someone, and maybe many, or possibly, one is simply the book that you need. You will also find the prices more affordable for the ones you select. Admittedly, the risk of buying more than you will ever read is great, especially with prices so low. But that’s okay, for a moment there was that connection.
So, what was the connection between me and The Simon & Schuster Book of the Opera, subtitled “A Complete Reference Guide – 1597 to the Present” (1979)? First, it was big (over 500 8x11 inch pages); it was old and used looking but filled with drawings and photos (over 400 illustrations), a visual history of opera accompanying the text. What intrigued me most was that for a few minutes I could not discern how it was organized as I looked for listings of operas I know. The book has an opera title and a composer index, but no table of contents, only a simple three paragraph opening statement that the book was not meant to be comprehensive (drawing into question the subtitle) and pointing out that 800 operas are included, which “because of their historical importance, public acceptance and acknowledged artistic quality, command a special place in the history of musical presentation.” Musical presentation? Each opera listing provides composer, librettist, first performance details, a synopsis, and a short statement on the opera’s significance. The statements are interesting but nothing that unusual here, and I have many opera anthologies already. Why buy this one?
I will tell you. The operas were not arranged in alphabetical order nor by composer. The solution to this puzzle came when I looked to the top of a page for the page number, and I saw 1736, yet I was about 50 pages into the book; the page numbers were at the bottom. I realized then that the operas were listed in chronological order. What a gift! How easy to see what an opera’s contemporaries were. I quickly thumbed through the twentieth century listings, spotting many I had seen or heard of and many more I had not. I am looking forward to exploring synopses grouped together to see if I can detect similar themes in opera contemporaries reflecting their time in history. It is also fun to read the significance paragraph for the operas I do not know and which are rarely if ever performed today. Listed were the names of 18 contributors and staff for this volume, with no other information about them. I bet that the individuals who contributed to this massive work kept treasured copies for themselves to show their families and friends. Browsing in a new bookstore, I might have been too intimidated to spring for full price on a new volume, but the one I bought was certainly worth $2.99 plus tax, a treat for years to com.