{"id":376,"date":"2026-09-09T01:17:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T05:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/?p=376"},"modified":"2026-09-09T01:44:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T05:44:26","slug":"a-treasury-of-grand-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/?p=376","title":{"rendered":"A Treasury of Grand Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Title:<\/strong> A Treasury of Grand Opera<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author:<\/strong> Henry W. Simon (editor)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original Publication Date:<\/strong> 1946<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Book’s Publisher:<\/strong> Simon & Schuster, New York (1946 trade paperback printing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Book’s Illustrator:<\/strong> Rafaello Busoni<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book’s Story:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music lovers and opera newcomers alike will enjoy this handsome mid-century treasury, which brings together the stories, music, and history behind seven of the most beloved operas ever written: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Verdi’s La Traviata and Aida, Bizet’s Carmen, Wagner’s Lohengrin, Gounod’s Faust, and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each opera comes with a full retelling of its story alongside sixty six arias, duets, and preludes, presented as playable piano arrangements, so a reader with even modest piano skills can bring these famous melodies to life at home. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with pencil, charcoal, and watercolor artwork capturing the drama and emotion of each opera’s key scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published in 1946, this treasury became a beloved staple for music lovers looking to deepen their appreciation of opera without needing a background in classical music theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author’s Story:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry W. Simon (1901\u20131970) was an American author, editor, educator, and music critic who served as chairman of the Music Critics Circle of New York. He had a gift for making classical music approachable for everyday readers and edited several popular opera guides in addition to this one, including the Pocket Treasury of Great Operas and a revised edition of The Victor Book of the Opera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Illustrator’s Story:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rafaello Busoni (1900\u20131962) was a German-born illustrator, the son of famed Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni. He trained as a self-taught artist in Switzerland and built his early career in Paris and Berlin before fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and settling in New York. There he became a prolific illustrator of trade books and textbooks, with a particular gift for geography and music subjects, and later turned much of his attention to children’s books, winning the 1963 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for The Man Who Was Don Quixote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Story:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon & Schuster was founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster, two young entrepreneurs who pooled their savings on a whim: Simon’s aunt, an avid crossword puzzle fan, had asked if a book of crossword puzzles existed, and finding none, the pair decided to publish one themselves. The Crossword Puzzle Book became an unexpected sensation, selling over a million copies in its first year and launching the company. Simon & Schuster went on to publish landmark titles like Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, and in 1939 backed the launch of Pocket Books, America’s first paperback publishing line. By the 1940s, when this opera treasury was published, Simon & Schuster had firmly established itself as one of America’s most innovative and commercially successful publishing houses, a reputation it has carried into the present day as one of the “Big Five” English-language publishers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title: A Treasury of Grand Opera Author: Henry W. Simon (editor) Original Publication Date: 1946 Our Book’s Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York (1946 trade paperback printing) Our Book’s Illustrator: Rafaello Busoni Book’s Story: Music lovers and opera newcomers alike will enjoy this handsome mid-century treasury, which brings together the stories, music, and history behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vintage-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ossianleafandlore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}