Robert Rushmore's THE SINGING VOICE remains one of the best non-technical texts on the subject, IMO.
For Diction texts, I rely on Piatak for Russian, Colorni for Italian, and Grubb and Bernac for French. I'd love an evaluation of the extant German diction texts out there.
For "Opera Plots" books, my two favourites are the DA CAPO BOOK OF OPERA, which is a very complete single-volume paperback, and Sir Denis Forman's A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, which is never entirely serious but manages to be both highly informative *AND* highly entertaining.
For books about singers, I'm very fond of Michael Scott's two-volume THE RECORD OF SINGING, which is of great value even if you don't own the companion CDs. I'm eagerly awaiting volume three!
For books on technique - I'm not terribly attached to any, though I refer mostly to D. Ralph Appelman's THE SCIENCE OF VOCAL PEDAGOGY and Richard Miller's THE STRUCTURE OF SINGING. But one volume I *am* very fond of is Jerome Hines' GREAT SINGERS ON GREAT SINGING, which is a series of interviews by Hines' with several of the "greats" of the opera in 1970s, discussing each singer's approach to technique and performance.
For books on interpretation, I think Martial Singher's AN INTERPRETIVE GUIDE TO OPERA ARIAS is invaluable. Boris Goldovsky's book on Soprano Arias is also good, though the only aria in there that I can use his advice on is "Voi lo sapete" from CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA.
And of course there are the various foreign-language dictionaries, grammars, etc. that I rely on. My rule is to buy the biggest and best of each dictionary, plus the 501 Verbs in each language, plus a fairly thick paperback dictionary (for portable, quick reference). I also look for dictionaries that include the IPA for each word.
km ===== My NEIL SHICOFF Website: http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Website: http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
----- We're sitting in the opera house; We're waiting for the curtain to arise With wonders for our eyes, A feeling of expectancy, A certain kind of ecstasy, Expectancy and ecstasy....Sh's's's.
- Charles Ives
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