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 Tannhäuser, Elsa and Ortrud in Lohengrin, Brünnhilde in Der Ring de Nibelungen, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, and Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)