Author: Charles Affron
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520958977
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 469
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Book Description
The Metropolitan has stood among the grandest of opera companies since its birth in 1883. Tracing the offstage/onstage workings of this famed New York institution, Charles Affron and Mirella Jona Affron tell how the Met became and remains a powerful actor on the global cultural scene. In this first new history of the company in thirty years, each of the chronologically sequenced chapters surveys a composer or a slice of the repertoire and brings to life dominant personalities and memorable performances of the time. From the opening night Faust to the recent controversial production of Wagner’s "Ring," Grand Opera is a remarkable account of management and audience response to the push and pull of tradition and reinvention. Spanning the decades between the Gilded Age and the age of new media, this story of the Met concludes by tipping its hat to the hugely successful "Live in HD" simulcasts and other twenty-first-century innovations. Grand Opera’s appeal extends far beyond the large circle of opera enthusiasts. Drawing on unpublished documents from the Metropolitan Opera Archives, reviews, recordings, and much more, this richly detailed book looks at the Met in the broad context of national and international issues and events.
Author: Jane Rosenberg
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 9780500278734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
An illustrated retelling of the plots of fifteen well-known operas.
Author: Johanna Fiedler
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400032318
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 445
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Book Description
If the opera world is full of “intrigue, double meanings, and devious dramatics,” then no place exemplifies this more than the world-famous Metropolitan Opera, where politics, ambition, and oversized egos have traditionally taken center stage along with some of the world’s richest music. Drawing on her fifteen years as its press representative, Johanna Fiedler explodes the traditional secrecy that surrounds the Met in this wonderfully entertaining account of its tumuluous history. Fiedler chronicles the Met’s early days as a home for legends like Toscanini, Mahler, and Caruso, and gives a fascinating account of the middle years when haughty blue-bloods battled stubborn adminstrators for control of a company that would emerge as America’s premiere opera house. She takes us behind the grand gold-curtain stage in more recent years as well, showing how musical superstars like Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and Kathleen Battle have electrified performances and scandalized the public. But most revelatory are Fiedler’s portrayals of James Levine and Joseph Volpe and their practically parallel ascendancies—Levine rising from prodigy to artistic director, Volpe advancing from stagehand to general manager—and their once strained relationship. Weaving together the personal, economic, and artistic struggles that characterize the Met’s long and vibrant history, Molto Agitato is a must-read saga of power, wealth, and, above all, great music.
Author: Helen Traubel
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 146421591X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 171
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Book Description
When the prompter falls dead during the second act of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre during a matinee performance at the Metropolitan Opera, as one can imagine, it causes quite a stir, especially when it is discovered that the deceased, a one time world famous Heldentenor has been poisoned. The detective assigned to the case, Lt. Quentin, finds himself immersed in the back stage drama of professional opera. His task is made more difficult when he decides that it had really been the star soprano who had been the intended victim, and not the prompter. Will he be able to solve the case before there is another Metropolitan Opera Murder?
Author: Helen Dike
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781494056629
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
This is a new release of the original 1943 edition.
Author: Daniel Bergner
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0316300659
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 255
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Book Description
The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom: "A beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers" (Terry Gross, Fresh Air). "One of the most inspiring stories I've come across in a long time."-Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive. At the age of twelve, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with little hope for the future. In 2011, at the age of twenty-four, Ryan won a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out 1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses. Sing for Your Life chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged and artistically intricate journey from solitary confinement to stardom. Daniel Bergner takes readers on Ryan's path toward redemption, introducing us to a cast of memorable characters -- including the two teachers from his childhood who redirect his rage into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing. Bergner illuminates all that it takes -- technically, creatively -- to find and foster the beauty of the human voice. And Sing for Your Life sheds unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.
Author: Lydia Freeman
Publisher: Puffin
ISBN: 9780140508925
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 68
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Book Description
A mouse who works as a page turner at the Metropolitan Opera House has only one enemy, a cat; but, during a performance of "The Magic Flute," something magical happens to change their lives.
Author: Charles M. Blow
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544228049
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
A respected journalist describes the abuse he suffered at the hands of a close family relative, the effect this had on his formative years and how he overcame the anger and self-doubt it left behind.
Author: Sarah Ruhl
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
ISBN: 1636700101
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 93
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Book Description
“Eurydice is a luminous retelling of the Orpheus myth from his beloved wife’s point of view. Watching it, we enter a singular, surreal world, as lush and limpid as a dream—an anxiety dream of love and loss—where both author and audience swim in the magical, sometimes menacing, and always thrilling flow of the unconscious… Ruhl’s theatrical voice is reticent and daring, accurate and outlandish.” —John Lahr, New Yorker A reimagining of the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice journeys to the underworld, where she reunites with her beloved father and struggles to recover lost memories of her husband and the world she left behind.
Author: Katy Flint
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
ISBN: 9780711260139
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 24
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Book Description
The Story Orchestra: The Magic Flute is a beautiful retelling of the famous opera set to the sound of Mozart's music.
