Classical Notes: March 16, 2007 Archive

R. I. P., Julian Budden

Posted at 8:52 AM on March 16, 2007 by Rex Levang

I'm surprised to find only one online obituary for Julian Budden, the writer on opera who died in late February.

His great scholarly accomplishment was his book, "The Operas of Verdi," in three volumes, analyzing all of Verdi's operas in ever-increasing detail. (Each of the early operas gets about 20 pages; by the time he gets to the late works, each opera gets well over 100 pages.) Not a work for beginners, but indispensable for opera fans of a certain degree of experience and obsessiveness, who have been known to refer casually to looking something up "in Budden."