Diva

by Matheopoulos (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $3.21

  By interviewing 26 great women singers of the past three decades, [Matheopoulos] hopes to present a survey of the diva's art. There's a lot of talk oftechnique and training, of finding the right repertoire and of tackling it. .. . [But] there's little sense of what is involved in making words and music into drama. Nor is there any indication that opera is a vast industry involving singers, opera houses and their staff, record companies and, through subsidy, governments. Instead, a few brief words on the need for a settled family life are all we get in the way of 'context'. . . . While writing about opera remains at the level of connoisseur's tittle-tattle, opera will continue to be seen as nonsense. . . . But, for all its excesses, opera is not nonsense, and it requires a critical engagement that . . . [this book is not] prepared to make.