A bit basic for longtime fans, but great for opera newbies.
A behind-the-scenes look at the state of opera today, by an industry insider.
Currently an opera librettist and lyricist, Vincent spent a decade as a professional singer; during five of those years, she founded and ran a small opera company in Baltimore, so she’s well equipped to explain the nuts and bolts of an art form frequently seen as mysterious by outsiders. Her determination not to intimidate sometimes makes her prose a little chirpy, and frequent operagoers will be familiar with much of the material, but this is a solid introduction for readers intrigued by but unfamiliar with the genre. The author takes readers by the hand through the process of creating, performing, and (not incidentally) selling an opera; her chapters are helpfully subtitled to flag subjects of debate—or, as Vincent prefers to call them, “battlegrounds” between opera traditionalists and those trying to coax it into the 21st century. In “The Score, or, That Should Be in a Museum!” she dissents from the view that a score is an unchangeable expression of the composer’s intent, reminding us that many operas have come down through history in multiple versions. In “The Stage, or, (Yellow) Facing the Music,” she describes with amusement far-out productions such as La bohème set in outer space, but it reminds those insisting that operas should be staged as they always have been that the traditions they defend include white singers in blackface playing Otello or taping their eyes and coyly flourishing fans in Madama Butterfly, while African American and Asian singers were denied employment. In “The Singers, or, She’s Got the Look,” she discusses the pressure on singers, women in particular, to keep their weight down, exacerbated by the fact that many opera performances are now broadcast. Frequent quotes from Vincent’s interviews with other opera professionals add weight to her arguments, while interpolations about her personal experiences give the book a human touch.
A bit basic for longtime fans, but great for opera newbies.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781668084069
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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