Customer Reviews

Court and Conquest: Ottoman Origins and the Design for Handel's "Tamerlano" at the Glimmerglass Opera

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For someone interested in Tamerlano, in Baroque opera, in costume design, or in renderings of Turkish and Persian costume, this is a fascinating publication. Certainly not for the general reading audience! This book contains many illustrations, culminating in sumptuous photographs from various angles of the costumes designed for Glimmerglass' gorgeous Tamerlano production. The background essays are interesting as well.

I bought this with a certain trepidation, not having a good idea of what it contained. (See ProductWiki below for details). It is a beautiful book containing mostly color photographs. I suppose, since some of the black-and-white pictures are etchings one might argue that they are in color - gray's a color!

I will use "Middle Eastern" as a general, if unsatisfactory, term for the Ottoman and Turkish Emprires and associated people. The first two thirds of the plates show sources for the designs. These consist of Turkish and other Middle Eastern paintings, textile samples, and European portrayals of various Middle Eastern people, and influences on European fashion.

Next are a selection of designer sketches for the costumes, and then a section of photographs of the costumes on mannequins and shots of the stage production. The sketches and exhibition pictures are generally full-paged. The costumes are arranged according to scenes in the opera, so that one may see a single costume more than once. Often, the shots are from different angles, so one gets a better idea of the details of the costume. The pictures are generally very high quality. One exception is the shots on the production, which seem to be overwhelmed by the stage lighting.. (Knowing next to nothing about photography, I have no idea if there was a practical way to do these better.)

There are four essays, one by the designer Judy Levin, detailing the historical background, interactions between Europe and the Middle East, and design choices.

A lovely book that should be of interest for Middle Eastern costuming, opera costuming, etc.