"With this overview, Elise K. Kirk provides a lively history of one of America's liveliest arts. A treasure trove of information on a substantial, heretofore neglected repertoire, American Opera sketches musical traits and provides plot summaries, descriptions of sets and stagings and biographical details on performers, composers and librettists for more than a hundred American operas, many of which have received unjustifiably scant attention since their premieres.".

"From the spectacle and melodrama of William Dunlap's Pizarro, in Peru (1800) and the pathos of Caryl Florio's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1882) to the chilling psychological drama of Jack Beeson's Lizzie Borden (1965) and the lyric elegance of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles (1991), opera in America displays the energy and diversity of the nation itself.

Kirk shows that this rich, varied repertoire includes far more than the familiar jewels Porgy and Bess, Candide, Susannah, and The Consul."--BOOK JACKET.