Opera's Second Death


Book Description

Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera - the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera.




Opera 101


Book Description

Written by an opera insider and featuring an introduction by Placido Domingo, here is a thorough, friendly, and truly complete guide to learning how to love and appreciate the opera. After a brief history of opera, the book includes a guide to operatic terms, a minute-by-minute listener's guide to 11 central works, a list of recommended books and recordings and much more.




Opera, Or, The Undoing of Women


Book Description

This was the first work to have applied a systematised feminist theory to opera. It concentrates on the stories & text of opera, that perhaps have more relevence today in a growing literature than it had when it was the "sacrilegious" pioneering work.




Dead Man Walking


Book Description

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment and an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty • "Stunning moral clarity.” —The Washington Post Book World • Basis for the award-winning major motion picture starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn "Sister Prejean is an excellent writer, direct and honest and unsentimental. . . . She almost palpably extends a hand to her readers.” —The New York Times Book Review In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier’s death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute—men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. Out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Here Sister Helen confronts both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the fears of a society shattered by violence and the Christian imperative of love. On its original publication in 1993, Dead Man Walking emerged as an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty. Now, some two decades later, this story—which has inspired a film, a stage play, an opera and a musical album—is more gut-wrenching than ever, stirring deep and life-changing reflection in all who encounter it.




Death at the Opera


Book Description

Mystery fiction. Detective and mystery stories. Hillmaston School has chosen The Mikado for their next school performance and, in recognition of her generous offer to finance the production, their meek and self-effacing arithmetic mistress is offered a key role. But when she disappears mid-way through the opening night performance and is later found dead, unconventional psychoanalyst Mrs Bradley is called in to investigate. To her surprise she soon discovers that the hapless teacher had quite a number of enemies u all with a motive for murder.




Opera and the Morbidity of Music


Book Description

The death of classical music, the distinguished critic and musicologist Joseph Kerman declares, is “a tired, vacuous concept that will not die.” In this wide-ranging collection of essays and reviews, Kerman examines the ongoing vitality of the classical music tradition, from the days of Guillaume Dufay, John Taverner, and William Byrd to contemporary operas by Philip Glass and John Adams. Here are enlightening investigations of the lives and works of the greatest composers: Bach and his Well-Tempered Clavier, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s piano concertos, Schubert’s songs, Wagner’s and Verdi’s operas. Kerman discusses The Magic Flute as well as productions of the Monteverdi operas in Brooklyn and the Ring in San Francisco and Bayreuth. He also includes remembrances of Maria Callas and Carlos Kleiber that make clear why they were such extraordinary musicians. Kerman argues that predictions—let alone assumptions—of the death of classical music are not a new development but part of a cultural transformation that has long been with us. Always alert to the significance of historical changes, from the invention of music notation to the advent of recording, he proposes that the place to look for renewal of the classical music tradition in America today is in opera—in a flood of new works, the rediscovery of long-forgotten ones, and innovative productions by companies large and small. Written for a general audience rather than for experts, Kerman’s essays invite readers to listen afresh and to engage with his insights into how music works. “His gift is so uncommon as to make one sad,” Alex Ross has said.




The Age of Bowie


Book Description

Author and industry insider Paul Morley explores the musical and cultural legacies left behind by “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Respected arts commentator and author Paul Morley, an artistic advisor to the curators of the highly successful retrospective exhibition David Bowie is for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, constructs a definitive story of Bowie that explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, influenced others, invented the future, and entered history as someone who could and would never be forgotten. Morley captures the greatest moments from across Bowie’s life and career; how young Davie Jones of South London became the international David Bowie; his pioneering collaborations in the recording studio with the likes of Tony Visconti, Mick Ronson, and Brian Eno; to iconic live, film, theatre, and television performances from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, as well as the various encounters and artistic relationships he developed with musicians from John Lennon, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop to Trent Reznor and Arcade Fire. And of course, discusses in detail his much-heralded and critically acclaimed finale with the release of Blackstar just days before his shocking death in New York. Morley offers a startling biographical critique of David Bowie’s legacy, showing how he never stayed still even when he withdrew from the spotlight, how he always knew his own worth, and released a dazzling plethora of personalities, concepts, and works into the world with a single-minded determination and a voluptuous imagination to create something the likes of which the world had never seen before—and likely will never see again.




Death in Venice


Book Description

One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.




A Sound Mind


Book Description

For readers of Mozart in the Jungle and Year of Wonder, a new history of and guide to classical music. Paul Morley made his name as a journalist covering the rock and pop of the 1970s and 1980s. But as his career progressed, he found himself drawn toward developing technologies, streaming platforms, and, increasingly, the music from the past that streaming services now made available. Suddenly able to access every piece Mozart or Bach had ever written and to curate playlists that worked with these musicians' themes across different performers, composers, and eras, he began to understand classical music in a whole new way and to believe that it was music at its most dramatic and revealing. In A Sound Mind, Morley takes readers along on his journey into the history and future of classical music. His descriptions, explanations, and guidance make this seemingly arcane genre more friendly to listeners and show the music's power, depth, and timeless beauty. In Morley's capable hands, the history of the classical genre is shown to be the history of all music, with these long-ago pieces influencing everyone from jazz greats to punk rockers and the pop musicians of today.




Phantom


Book Description

An imaginative and sensitive story of the life of the Phantom of the Opera; winner of the Boots Romantic Novel Award.