Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song [Hardcover]

Kim Chernin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

The celebrated author of The Hungry Self and In My Mother's House presents the eagerly awaited, frank, and insightful first biography of 29-year-old Grammy Award-winning opera superstar Cecilia Bartoli, the preeminent woman in opera today. 16 pp. of photos. Discography. Syndicated radio feature.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Cecilia Bartoli--The Passion of Song is really two books in one. The first is author Kim Chernin's account of a growing fascination with Bartoli's voice and the desire to meet the singer and interview her about her art. The second is a performance guide by coauthor Renate Stendhal that traces the singer's career from its beginnings on Italian television to her debuts at La Scala and the Met.

Neither author takes a particularly critical look at Cecilia Bartoli's talents or her career, but fans of the singer will find plenty of information about their idol, from her early years studying opera under the tutelage of her mother Silvana Bazzoni, also a singer, to the master classes she now teaches in concert with Ms. Bazzoni.

From Publishers Weekly

Wayne Koestenbaum started something with The Queen's Throat about gays and their frenzy over opera, and now we have a lesbian take on diva worship, at least Chernin and Stendhal's Bartolimania. Stendhal, who here contributes the performance guide to the mezzo coloratura's 14 appearances in staged opera, is the more restrained, while Chernin pulls out all the stops in a text she thinks "should be written in a pitch of high ecstasy." The adjectives erupt like lava, as in one sentence Bartoli is described as "voluble, intelligent, quick, clever, fiery, intense, authoritative, gracious." Stendhal expresses fear that the gods may cause the 29-year-old singer to die young in payment for her perfection; but, she speculates further, perhaps Bartoli is "here" on a mission that could protect her. The authors, who previously collaborated on Sex and Other Sacred Games, fell in love with Bartoli on first sighting in 1991, when the then unknown performer sang in an almost empty concert hall on the UC Berkeley campus. A couple of years later, they interviewed her in Houston at her American stage debut in The Barber of Seville. They talked with Bartoli again briefly at a master class she and her mother conducted in Germany. And it's these few encounters that have been tarted up into this frilly valentine. Photos. $25,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Pub Overstock Unlimited Inc; 1st edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060186445
• ISBN-13: 978-0060186449
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,313,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing book, March 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song (Hardcover)

I thought it was a biography of Cecilia Bartoli, but it is not. This book mairly gives Chernin's impression of Bartoli's career and life. So, don't expect too much.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dreadful, November 1, 2000

By 

Laurie A. McMaster (Peabody, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song (Paperback)

This book could have been much better had the writers been not so blinded by Ms. Bartoli's voice. There are a few serious flaws with this title, the first being that Ms. Bartoli was too young to be the subject of a biography. She simply hasn't sung enough yet, nor has she hit her prime. These ladies fawn so much on her voice that I couldn't continue reading. Please, I know it's beautiful but get passed it! It further offers no critical insight and remains quite superficial. I wonder what Ms. Bartoli's take on this project was? Although an ardant fan of the lady, those looking for an exploration into the world of opera and what Ms. Bartoli hopes to achieve, will be sadly disappointed.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Take a rain-check..., April 15, 2001

By 

H. Du Plessis "Paul" (Johannesburg, Gauteng South Africa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song (Hardcover)

If what you're after is a self-indulgent opus created by the representative of an elitist club apparently bent on rediscovering their own sexuality by squatting over a mirror, then The Passion of Song is for you.

One cannot help but feel that, not unlike Cecilia Bartoli's first TV appearances on Fantastico in her native Italy, this book was completely out of her control, and that that show, together with The Passion of Song, could go a long way towards creating completely the wrong perception of the singer.

Apart from the second half of the book, which dispenses mildly interesting details about what are presumably key performances in Bartoli's career, this publication has precious little to offer. For heaven's sake, we all know Bartoli is a beautiful, sensuous young woman, with an extraordinary voice and astonishing talent (they're not the same thing) - that's why we bought The Passion of Song... to find out where she came from, and where she's going! The book didn't say...

I should have given The Passion of Song to someone I don't like on or shortly after page 18, where the author buys her Bartoli CDs and then takes them home in order NOT to listen to them, while she replays the singer's Berkeley concert over and over in her mind. It was at that point that I started suspecting that what I was in fact reading was not a biography, but an autobiography, during the course of which the author was turning herself into a sort of operatic Nelson Mandela, with a monkey the size of the original Fafner on her back.

I am an unadulterated Bartoli fan, and I'm very sad about having bought and (partly) read The Passion of Song. It's going to be a long old time before I can listen to the Bartoli voice again without feeling like having a bath afterwards... and I have this author to thank for it. Incidentally, I never did finish reading it - I was dreading the moment I turned a page, only to be told that Bartoli is a Leo, with Mars (who is Female, now you come to mention it) in the ascendant in Aquarius, or something equally, well, shall we settle for "startling?"