Opera Anecdotes (Oxford Paperbacks)
by Ethan Mordden
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ethan MorddenEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1988-12-08
ISBN: 0195056612
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Opera Anecdotes (Oxford Paperbacks)
Book Review: More Than Just a Joke Book
Summary: 5 Stars
There are several books of opera anecdotes in print, but I am particularly partial to this one. There seems to be a basic repertoire of stories that make the rounds. Pompous composers and even more pompous singers fill the history books with their adventures and faux pas.
What's different about Mr. Mordden's collection is that he includes brief biographical sketches of the lives of many composers (Gluck, Mozart, Wagner, Rossini etc.), singers (Caruso, Flagstad, Callas) and musicians (Toscanini, Beecham). These bios, sometime covering two pages or more, provide interesting incidents and commentaries on the lives of the famous. There is even a short history of the castrati.
All in all when you finish this book you've not only had some good laughs, but have learned some interesting new things about the world of opera.
Summary of Opera Anecdotes (Oxford Paperbacks)
From backstage squabbles and box-office chicanery to the gallantry and glory of creation, this book unveils a delightful panorama of opera lore, alternately hilarious, poignant, and wise. Ethan Mordden has mined the literature for "the best stories" and retells them in the fresh and witty style that prompted Publishers Weekly to hail him as "one of the most entertaining and provocative writers around."Mordden has selected a vast collection of classic, arcane and unusual anecdotes, including Giuseppe Verdi's advice on how to run an opera house and how to write an aria, Enrico Caruso's adventures in the San Francisco earthquake, Arturo Toscanini's reunion dinner with his former lover Geraldine Farrar, and Beverly Sills' ad libbing from the Met balcony during a Lily Pons Lakm�. The volume contains sad stories, too, as when Hans von B�low confronts his wife Cosima after she has left him for Wagner; and silly stories, as when Colonel Henry Mapleson attempts to put on Il Trovatore while missing one of the four principals, Azucena. We see history being made when Gluck's "psychological" orchestration so startles the Paris Op�ra orchestra that the players trail off in astonishment; and we see history nearly unmade when Luciano Pavarotti's plane crashes en route to Milan.
"There is history here," Mordden notes, "for if many of the tales are silly, many others are telling. They bring us close to a moment in which art is invented, revised, elaborated. The characters of opera's adventures are so vital and stimulating that almost anything they do enlightens us."
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