Scholars of Richard Wagner’s works have long noted his numerous comparisons between their characters and plots in his letters, essays, and recorded remarks. Yet no one has previously attempted to assess their implications for our understanding of his art systematically. Paul Heise’s quest to grasp the allegorical unity underlying Wagner’s canonical artworks began in the 1970s.

Scholars devoted to analysis of Richard Wagner’s operas and music-dramas have long noted his numerous comparisons between their characters and plots in his letters, essays, and recorded remarks. Yet no one has previously attempted to assess their implications for our systematic understanding of his art.

Why Britain Rocked: How Rock Became Roll and Took Over the World challenges the origins of ‘Beatlemania’ by travelling deep into Britain’s history to trace the events that led to Britain’s twentieth century musical explosion. With rigorous in-depth research, new discoveries and original insights Why Britain Rocked: How Rock Became Roll and Took Over the World completely reframes the history of British pop music and argues that The Beatles’ arrival that so surprised the world really shouldn’t have been a surprise at all.

Anything But Dull: the Life and Art of Jeff Nuttall reveals the life lived and the art created by a visionary polymath whose generosity of spirit defined his character. From childhood traumas to revolutionary acts, through triumphs, defeats and resurrections Jeff Nuttall’s story is told here for the first time in all its richness and singularity.

A Russian Jew who spent most of his life in England and America, Alexander Bakshy (1885-1949) was a theater critic and literary translator. He was also an innovative theorist who applied to theater the discourse of self-reflexive modernism, prizing anti-illusionist medium-awareness. Indeed, he was something of a pioneer in the area of “spectatorship” and medium-awareness, going so far as to argue in favor of the modernist idea of overt presentationalism on stage as opposed to disingenuous representationalism.

Paul Brian Heise’s The Wound That Will Never Heal is an original allegorical reading of Richard Wagner’s epic music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. Heise challenges the standard view that Wagner merely dramatizes the conflict between love and power and demonstrates instead that his greatest work is an allegory exploring humanity’s longing for transcendent value and that quest’s paradoxical establishment of a science-based secular society.

Ninety-nine years ago, a new form of storytelling emerged from the ruins of World War I. Different in scope and power from theater or literature, and unlike any film that had come before, Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari addressed a direct challenge to its audience, demanding to be viewed as something other than what was immediately presented. Unfortunately, criticism has not risen to the challenge.

Speaking of Wagner compiles in a new and highly accessible format celebrated author, lecturer, and Metropolitan Opera commentator William Berger’s collection of talks and presentations about Richard Wagner, the most controversial, and perhaps the most widely influential, artist in history. These talks have been successful with diverse audiences, ranging from newcomers to the field to the most exacting experts, often at the same time!

The past decade has overflowed in a raging stream of contradictions. Old certainties have yielded to relentless insecurity over a time when much of the human experience got immeasurably better even as many things only ever seemed to get worse. As Paul du Quenoy’s globetrotting criticism reveals, the arts were in a ferment that matched profound and yet totally unpredicted social and political transformations.

In 1759 the court of the Italian Duchy of Parma adopted the inspiration of cultural creators who recommended a reform of Italian opera along French lines. These writers favored combining Italian-style music with the wider range of musical genres and scenic variety of French opera. As the prize-winning music critic and commentator George W. Loomis shows in this groundbreaking volume, the young composer Tommaso Traetta was engaged to create new operas responding to these demands.