In this revision of her 2006 PhD dissertation at the University of Copenhagen, Parly (arts and cultural studies, U. of Copenhagen) systematically analyzes and compares the leading female
characters in the operas by German composer Richard Wagner (1813-83). She discovered that a single methodology could not encompass the number-opera tradition of his early years, his later
leitmotif-based music dramas, and the sophisticated musico-dramatic mature works, and so adapted her methods to the opera at hand. Between the characters in the title, she considers Elisabeth
and Venus in Tannh瓣user, Elsa and Ortrud in Lohengrin, Br羹nnhilde in Der Ring de Nibelungen, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, and Eva in Die Meistersinger von N羹rnberg. Distributed in the US by
ISBS. Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
