pt. 1. The resourcing of grand operas. The 'machine' and the state / Hervé Lacombe -- Fictions and librettos / Nicholas White -- The spectacle of the past in grand opera / Simon Williams -- The chorus / James Parakilas -- Dance and dancers / Marian Smith -- Roles, reputations, shadows : singers at the Opéra, 1828-1849 / Mary Ann Smart.

pt. 2. Revaluation and the twenty-first century. Directing grand opera : Rienzi and Guillaume Tell at the Vienna State Opera / David Pountney.

pt. 3. Grand operas for Paris. La Muette and her context / Sarah Hibberd -- Scribe and Auber : constructing grand opera / Herbert Schneider -- Meyerbeer : Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots / Matthias Brzoska -- Meyerbeer : Le Prophète and L'Africaine / John H. Roberts -- The grand operas of Fromental Halévy / Diana R. Hallman -- From Rossini to Verdi / M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet -- After 1850 at the Paris Opéra : institution and repertory / Steven Huebner.

pt. 4. Transformations of grand opera. Richard Wagner and the legacy of French grand opera / Thomas Grey -- Grand opera in Russia : fragments of an unwritten history / Marina Frolova-Walker -- Grand opera among the Czechs / Jan Smaczny -- Italian opera / Fiamma Nicolodi -- Grand opera in Britain and the Americas / Sarah Hibberd.