By Andrew Moravcsik [NY Times, 2 December 2010]

For four hundred years, no art form has been more closely identified with Western culture than opera. At the heart of every great European city stands an opera house. Over the centuries, it became the center of intellectual and social life: the place where the aristocracy gambled and partied, the rising bourgeoisie conversed, the artistic avant-garde sought inspiration. From Baroque to post-modern, opera librettos mirror the modern history of the West.