A smart, splendid account of the world's most famous—and quirkiest—serious music festival. Less than a century elapsed between the age of Mozart, when musicians were the servants of great princes, and the age of Wagner, who made royalty his servants and idolaters. The crowning act in this unparalleled social role reversal was the erection in the early 1870s of a temple in which to stage the Meister's lengthy music dramas, particularly the four-opera, 19-hour Ring cycle and the ``sacred festival play'' Parsifal. It was (and still is) a peculiar, wooden barnlike structure on a hill in a drab, sleepy, and otherwise undistinguished provincial German town. Yet for 118 years, the Festspielhaus has hypnotized the world's musical and social aristocracy, who brave the August heat, the uncomfortable seats, and the cramped accommodations to sit in hushed reverence for hours of music—afraid to cough or stir for fear of their neighbors' icy glances. It's all very German, and Spotts, an associate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard, does not slight the story's darker side: Bayreuth's symbolic significance as a shrine for German nationalism and, ultimately, fascism and anti- semitism. Richard Wagner died before the festival was a decade old; its management passed to his widow, Cosima, and later to his children and grandchildren. Unsurprisingly, given his own craziness, Wagner spawned a sizeable population of difficult characters and a few genuinely talented artists, in particular his grandson Wolfgang, a superb director who dragged Bayreuth into a new age of theatrical innovation after it had been tarred by the racist brush of the older generation. Spotts decribes them all perceptively and is also good on the unusual acoustics of the theater itself, with its famous hooded orchestra pit. An important, elegantly written, deeply engrossing cultural history of this unique (and uniquely strange) cultural institution.
Pub Date: June 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-300-05777-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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