Opera has achieved a breadth of appeal unprecedented in its history, commanding the patronage of the wealthy but also a popular following, generating well-filled opera houses, as well as spectacular mass events, public television relays of famous occasions, and huge record sales. The Oxford Dictionary of Opera is a comprehensive one-volume reference work on the subject. The entries include composers, individual operas, well-known arias and principal characters; singers, conductors, producers and designers; technical terms; librettists, and authors of works and the popular subjects on which operas have been based; opera companies, opera-houses and festivals; and countries and cities in which opera has been staged. The information provided includes opera synopses and first performance details, worklists of composers and listings of their writings and catalogues; bibliographies of works about opera; debuts and career highlights of singers, with notes on voice type, style, and reputation; definitions and discussions of technical terms and operatic styles; historical surveys of the history of opera in one country. The text is linked by a network of cross-references and is written in a style accessible to the non-specialist. The work has its roots in the earlier Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (2/E, 1979 by John Warrack and Harold Rosenthal), drawing on the same basic framework though the overall extent is considerably larger, the coverage wider, and the information more up to date. A few entries have been taken over from the COD Opera without change while some others have been used but expanded and updated.