Living Opera (Hardcover book) by Joshua Jampol
Living Opera (Hardcover book)
by Joshua Jampol
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: OUP USA (27 May 2010)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0195381386
ISBN-13: 978-0195381382
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
Here is a fascinating collection of 20 wide-ranging interviews with the preeminent opera singers, conductors, directors, and designers working on and behind the stage today. In Living Opera, Joshua Jampol invites opera-lovers to listen in as performers such as Renee Fleming, Natalie Dessay, Rolando Villazon and Placido Domingo speak in exceptionally frank terms about their strengths and weaknesses and address such hard-hitting topics as how they deal with critics, vocal troubles, and balancing their career and family lives. We hear conductors such as James Conlon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Kent Nagano discuss their likes and dislikes about the state of contemporary opera, their own inspirations, whom they hope to inspire, and how opera can remain relevant today. World-class directors such as Robert Carsen and Patrice Chéreau discuss the complexities involved in staging a successful opera. Jampol has unprecedented access to all the major singers, conductors, and directors, and the table of contents reads like a “who’s who” of the global opera world. Each interview highlights a distinctive voice speaking about his or her career path, first break, colleagues, major influences, audiences, critics and all the diverse professions making up the emotional and extravagant world of the lyric arts. Jampol brings immense knowledge and a wonderful flair to these conversations, allowing his subjects to follow their thoughts wherever they lead and revealing in the process a more intimate, reflective side of such stars as Pierre Boulez, William Christie, Joyce DiDonato, Seiji Ozawa, Samuel Ramey, and many others. For anyone wanting to know more about the people behind the performances–what they think, how they feel, and who they really are–Living Opera is full of delights and surprises.
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This is one of the more interesting collections of interviews to come out in some time. I immediately read the SK “working man” interview, which unfortunately was shoehorned into a 30 minute intermission during Goetterdaemmerung, otherwise it should have continued with undiminished interest, I am sure. SK was very amusing in his description of how he pushes the envelope on stage, as well as detailing several of his artistic concepts and credos more or less familiar to those of us who keep up with his interviews and articles. I moved on to Domingo, Fleming, Conlon, and it seems to me the book is a real winner from cover to cover.