A century can be understood in many ways
- in terms of its inventions its crimes or its art. In Opening Skinners Box Lauren Slater
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Pogue is a wonderful teacher... He can teach anybody." --Gay Talese bestselling author of Honor Thy Father " Scott Speck is a great communicator of classical music... Concert audiences & readers alike cant help getting caught up in the joy of his subject." --David Styers American Symphony Orchestra League Opera is weird. Everybody wears makeup & sings all the time. Even when theyre singing your language which is rare you still cant understand the words. Women play men men play women & 45--year--olds play teenagers. All the main characters seem to get killed off. & when somebody dies he takes ten minutes to sing about it. Yet for all its weirdness an operatic experience is an experience in breathtaking beauty. When you hear a soprano float a soft high C or a tenor singing a love song or a full--throated chorus in the climax of a scenes dramatic finale you cant help getting goosebumps. Want to experience all that beauty for yourself but dont know where to begin? Opera For Dummies is an excellent place to start. Written by an acclaimed conductor & a musical director this friendly guide tells you what you need to know to: * Understand opera from the Baroque & Roman periods through today * Interpret characters orchestra chorus & other players * Understand whats happening both on stage & off * Choose the best seats * Identify famous operas * Build a great collection of opera recordings * Locate opera sites & chat groups online Whether youre interested in attending a live opera want to build a collection of recordings or just want to be able to talk about opera intelligently Opera For Dummies is for you. Among other things youll explore: * The words the music & the people who sing it * The history of opera & the lives of the great composers * Going to the opera including tips for getting tickets preparing for the opera dressing for the opera & more * Musical & theatrical conventions used in opera * In--depth synopses of the worlds most beloved operas On the bonus CD youll find: * More than 60 minutes of music compiled especially for the book * A multimedia piece for PC or MAC Wonder what it is about opera that can make a grown person cry like a baby? Find out in Opera For Dummies." ...

Claire Seymour examines ways in which Brittens operas explored & articulated the inherent ambiguity & latent sexuality of music particularly song & suggests that they may illustrate his search for a public voice which would embody communicate & perhaps resolve his private beliefs & anxieties. She demonstrates how the delicate balance between private & public communication & the tension between art as self-expression & art as moral resolution were key concerns in Brittens music. Analyses of Brittens operas from Paul Bunyan to Death in Venice the three Church Parables & several of the childrens operas offer evidence that for Britten opera was the natural medium through which to explore express & paradoxically repress his private concerns. ...

Of the German Army Groups that attacked Soviet Russia Von Leeb's Army Group North tasked with seizing the Baltic States & Leningrad was the smallest & weakest. Fortunately General Kuznetzov's Northwestern Front was in an even weaker state. When Army Group North attacked on 22 June it soon smashed through the Dvina River Line & the Stalin Line & flooded into Latvia. Despite brave counterattacks & defense by the Soviet forces the Germans pressed on towards Leningrad which by 9 September was encircled. This book examines the German offensive & also the courageous Soviet attempts to halt the German spearhead defending every possible line against overwhelming odds. ...

Operation Barbarossa the German invasion of the Soviet Union began the largest & most costly campaign in military history. Its failure was a key turning point of the Second World War. The operation was planned as a Blitzkrieg to win Germany its Lebensraum in the east & the summer of 1941 is well-known for the German armys unprecedented victories & advances. Yet the German Blitzkrieg depended almost entirely upon the motorised Panzer groups particularly those of Army Group Centre. Using archival records in this 2009 book David Stahel presents a history of Germanys summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest & most powerful Panzer groups on the Eastern front. Stahels research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germanys war against the Soviet Union highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital Panzer forces & revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion. ...

The story of the photographic intelligence work undertaken from a country house at Medmenham Buckinghamshire is one of the great lost stories of the Second World War. At its peak in 1944 almost 2 000 British & American men & women worked at the top-secret Danesfield House interpreting photographs
- the majority stereoscopic so they could be viewed in 3D
- to unlock secrets of German military activity & weapons development. Millions of aerial photographs were taken by Allied pilots flying unarmed modified Spitfires & Mosquitos on missions over Nazi Europe. It was said that an aircraft could land the photographs be developed & initial interpretation completed within two hours
- marking the culmination of years of experiments in aerial intelligence techniques. Their finest hour began in 1943 during the planning stages of the Allied invasion of Europe when Douglas Kendall who masterminded the interpretation work at Medmenham led the hunt for Hitler's secret weapons. Operation Crossbow would grow from a handful of photographic interpreters to the creation of a h&-picked team & came to involve interpreters from across the Medmenham spectrum including the team of aircraft specialists led by the redoubtable Constance Babington Smith. In November that year whilst analysing photographs of Peenemunde in northern Germany they spotted a small stunted aircraft on a ramp. This intelligence breakthrough linked the Nazi research station with a growing network of sites in northern France where ramps were being constructed aligned not only with London but targets throughout southern Britain. Through the combined skill & dedication of the Crossbow team & the heroism of the Allied pilots throughout late 1943 & 1944 V-weapon launch sites were located & through countermeasures destroyed saving hundreds of thousands of lives & changing the course of the war. Operation Crossbow is a wonderful story of human endeavour & derring-do told for the first time.


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Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer was part of a secret detachment of the US Army known as the ' Jedi Knights'. In Operation Dark Heart" he reveals for the first time & in amazing detail the otherwise secret world of black operations & clandestine intelligence plots conducted by the Western allies in an alien terrain against often undefinable enemies. This book is a gripping & compulsive insight into the espionage world & into a complex labyrinth of agencies that do not like to share secrets. It is also the true & moving story of a twenty-first-century warrior." ...

* An in-depth study of the biggest SAS-led external battle of the Rhodesian bush war Startling in its innovation & daringly suicidal Operation Dingo was not only the Fireforce concept writ large but the prototype for all the major Rhodesian airborne attacks on the external bases of Rhodesian African nationalist insurgents in the neighbouring territories of Mozambique & Zambia until such operations ceased in late 1979. Fireforce as a military concept is a 'vertical envelopment' of the enemy with the 20mm cannon being the principle weapon of attack mounted in an Alouette III K-Car flown by the air force commander with the army commander on board directing his ground troops deployed from G-Cars (Alouette III troop-carrying gunships & latterly Bell ' Hueys' in 1979) & parachuted from DC-3 Dakotas. In support would be propeller-driven ground-attack aircraft & on call would be Canberra bombers Hawker Hunter & Vampire jets. On 23 November 1977 the Rhodesian Air Force & 184 SAS & Rhodesian Light Infantry paratroopers attacked 10 000 Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army cadres based at ' New Farm' Chimoio 90 kilometres inside Mozambique. Two days later the same force attacked 4 000 guerrillas at Tembue another ZANLA base over 200 kilometres inside Mozambique north of Tete on the Zambezi River. Estimates of ZANLA losses vary wildly; however a figure exceeding 6 000 casualties is realistic. The Rhodesians suffered two dead eight wounded & lost one aircraft. It would produce the biggest SAS-led external battle of the Rhodesian bush war. ...

Lauren Jack Ruby & Billy live by the seaside with their mum & dad. But their parents are always arguing & then their dad moves out. Lauren & Jack decide they have to get them together again. & so begins Operation Eiffel Tower.. .in which the four children try to raise money to give their mum & dad a treat in an attempt to make them happier. First they want to send their parents to Paris but quickly realise they can never afford that so instead they set up a dinner for two under the Eiffel Tower in the local crazy golf attraction. But will it get their parents talking again? A funny & very moving story that tackles important issues with a light touch. ...

Operation Fortitude was the ingenious web of deception spun by the Allies to mislead the Nazis as to how & where the D-Day landings were to be mounted. One of the most creative intelligence operations of all time -- Kim Philby The story of how this web was woven is one of intrigue personal drama ground-breaking techniques internal resistance & good fortune. It is a tale of double agents black radio broadcasts phantom armies Ultra decrypts & dummy parachute drops. These diverse tactics were intended to come together to create a single narrative so compelling that it would convince Adolf Hitler of its authenticity. Operation Fortitude was intended to create the false impression that the Normandy landings were merely a feint to disguise a massive forthcoming invasion by this American force in the Pas de Calais. In other words the success of D-Day -- the beginning of the end of the Second World War -- was made possible by the efforts of men & women who were not present on the Normandy beaches. Men such as Juan Pujol a Spanish double-agent (code-name GARBO) who sent hundreds of wireless messages from London to Madrid in the build-up to D-Day relaying supposed intelligence from his fictitious spy network. This allowed the enemy to conclude that the number of Allied divisions preparing to invade was twice the actual number. Men such as R.V Jones the head of British Scientific Intelligence who masterminded the dropping of tinfoil confetti from the bomb-bay doors of Lancaster bombers creating a false impression that a flotilla of Allied ships was heading in the opposite direction to the genuine invasion fleet. Using first hand sources from a wide range of archives government documents letters & memos Operation Fortitude builds a picture of what wartime Britain was like as well as the immense pressure these men & women were working under & insure D-Day succeeded. ...