The romance, passion, and competition of modern opera come alive in this sequel, aimed at aficionados.
This second volume of a history series on tenors offers extensive interviews, letters, and critiques focused on Franco Corelli.
Picking up where his first installment left off, Zucker (Franco Corelli & a Revolution in Singing: Fifty-Four Tenors Spanning 200 Years, Volume 1, 2015, etc.), once host of Columbia University’s radio show Opera Fanatic and a performer himself, applies his impressive pedigree of classical music knowledge to outline the fall of the castrati in the early 1800s. The culture of the Napoleonic era began banning castrati—male children castrated at a young age and raised to sing in more feminine ranges—from schools, and the pope lifted the prohibition against women performing onstage. During the castrati’s decline rose a new group of tenors like Gilbert-Louis Duprez, with his high C from the chest, and Giovanni Rubini, “the king of the high Fs.” These singers’ popularity and heroic characters would turn audiences and composers’ attentions to them and their successors. Among the latter was Corelli, and here Zucker shares his extraordinary access to the star, reprinting wide-ranging interviews as well as various correspondences, most notably the singer’s letters to fellow Italian tenor Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. Corelli recalls developing his voice—not just in his early years, but also across his long career—while discussing his numerous stage rivalries with the likes of Mario Del Monaco and Richard Tucker. Explicit facets of Corelli’s sex life are recounted in conversations with his mistresses and his wife, Loretta, and rumored flirtations are addressed. Despite or perhaps because of these deeply personal touches, this volume stands as an impressive resource for opera fans and scholars, with the author breaking down many of Corelli’s performances in detail, explaining vocal techniques and their origins. Those not well-educated in these concepts won’t find a teaching guide here, and readers who lack a background in music theory and stage singing will often find themselves lost. That doesn’t mean the volume is totally unapproachable, as its numerous (well over a hundred) photographs and illustrations are quite enthralling, and those interested in music history will find some useful trivia, from the technical aspects of castration to the drama between modern opera’s biggest names. Zucker also takes other Corelli biographies to task with a biting, decisive tone that only a true critic can execute so entertainingly.
The romance, passion, and competition of modern opera come alive in this sequel, aimed at aficionados.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-891456-03-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bel Canto Society
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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