If you can't remember a particular aria from Gounod's "Faust" or a certain detail from the song contest at Wartburg, this site dedicated to opera may be just the ticket. Created and maintained by Rick Bogart, a research scientist at Stanford, the site provides access to libretti, source texts, performance histories, synopses, discographies, and so on. The site also contains an opera information...

In September 1876, Karl Marx found the time to complain in a letter to his daughter Jenny: "Wherever one goes these days one is pestered with the question: What do you think of Wagner?" In his life, Richard Wagner was the subject of great discussion and admiration, and his works remain immensely popular today. Taken together, these two sites represent a nice introduction to both the man and his...