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With Annals of Opera (1st ed., 1943; 2nd ed., 1955) the German-born British musicologist Alfred Lœwenberg (1902–49) created a monumental work that contains information on 4,000 operatic works. It details premieres and international performances of operas from Monteverdi's day to 1940. In the print edition, individual entries are organized by country, subdivided by composer and opera, and specify title, details of the premiere, librettist and source of libretto, cast list, conductor, director, and other key aspects related to production and performance history. The author himself was aware of the daunting task, introducing it as “a skeleton history of opera, in dates and fact” (Preface). But it is more than that, as it provides all basic facts on opera. The third edition is in essence a reprint of the previous ones, with revisions and updates by Harold Rosenthal (Loewenberg died before the completion of the second edition). Edward J. Dent, who wrote the preface to the third edition, states that “Some alterations and fairly numerous corrections have been made, and many new dates and other facts added from the author’s notes. Further corrections from other sources have been accepted and incorporated, but essentially the Annals remain Loewenberg’s work, presented here as far as possible in his own revision. No attempt has been made to carry the records beyond 1940”. Operas that have been recently revived or performed in newer versions are marked with an asterisk. Although the volume contains only a fraction of the operas performed between 1597 and 1940, it is still the most comprehensive listing for this time period: an exhaustive work, indispensable as reference book. Similar in format, but including some 60,000 titles, is Franz Stieger’s Opernlexikon.