Customer Reviews

A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to The Plots, The Singers, The Composers, The Recordings (Modern Library Paperbacks)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Suppose you had an eccentric, British uncle who was absolutely nuts about opera. You're a tyro yourself, so whenever you go CD shopping or attend a live performance, he entertains you with a humorous summary of the libretto (not too hard to do with an opera if it's not "Wozzeck"), tells you which bits to really listen for, and provides a critique of singers. He's an expert---after all he was the deputy chairman of one of England's great opera houses---but he's not a snob. Listen to what he has to say about death in the mystic land of Oprania:

"Death is extremely common and has an almost universal characteristic unknown in our world, namely a period of Imminence during which the doomed person suffers a compulsion to sing. There are few known cases in Oprania where death has occurred without an aria, or at least a cavatina, being delivered during Imminence. The period of Imminence for long deaths can last for up to a whole act. Not even decapitation can ensure an aria-free death..."

If you think bursting into song at death's door is highly unlikely, listen to what the author--I mean your uncle--has to say about Valentin's death (he was stabbed by Faust with the help of the devil) in Gounod's "Faust:"

"Valentin is found dying in the street by a respectful and horrified chorus. He makes the customary brave gestures of a soldier in the face of death and turns on Marguerite [his sister who is Faust's lover] rather nastily (first in recitative and then in a short aria) saying that the only course open to her now is to become a hooker for the rest of her life."

Valentin curses his sister and dies, and for all his musical effort is only awarded one star (out of a possible three) by Sir Denis. "Faust" itself is rated a 'beta' (on a scale where 'alpha-plus' is reserved for truly great operas such as "The Marriage of Figaro", and 'gamma or less' for truly forgettable operas such as "La Rondine").

I almost subtracted a star from my review because Sir Denis awarded 'betas' to two of my favorite operas (Handel's 'Caesar' and Verdi's 'Forza'), but "A Night at the Opera" is way too good and funny and idiosyncratic (in the grand style that only British authors seem to be able to carry off) to be anything but a five-star book.

The eighty-three operas that were chosen to appear in this book all had three or more versions listed in the "Gramophone" CD catalogue of December 1992, from Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur" to Berg's "Wozzeck." Each opera's libretto is lovingly (and somewhat whackily) described. There is a "Look Out For" section that describes and rates the opera's arias, preludes, choruses, intermezzos, etc. with one to three stars. Example: "Si adempia il voler" from Puccini's "Tosca":

"The final scene [of Act II]: Scarpia sits down to write the phoney letter of safe conduct to a sweeping melody,** calm but full of menace, giving us a breathing space between the storms past and the storm to come: then the 'kiss of Tosca' [she stabs Scarpia] with all the stops out--and the calm melody plays the scene out (All Rome trembled before him) ending with a sonorous funereal version of Scarpia's theme accompanied by a death rattle of drums. Stupendous."

Stupendous, indeed, even though Sir Denis only gives it two stars.

The final two sections describing each opera are "News and Gossip"--background on how and why the opera was composed, and "Comment"--the author's summary of where the opera fits in the repertoire (plus any other remarks he chooses to make).

This is a grand old book, all 959 pages of it. I read the whole thing, even the penultimate "Words Words Words" dictionary, and the final page of acknowledgements, "Friends, Supporters, Colleagues and Minders."

Please, just one more quotation from the final page:

"I would like to thank: Bamber Gascoigne for giving me the idea in the first place (and let it be noted that this handsome acknowledgement in no way affects the author's title to 100% of the copyright)."

I loved this book and you will too, even if you only have a sneaking fondness for the 'Queen of Music'.

Much more than just a collection of synopses of the great operas, A Night at the Opera provides a great starting point for learning about any major opera.

First, you'll learn about how the opera came to be written and the story behind the story. Then, there's a full synopsis of the opera. Next is a musical description of the numbers, with a system of noting the highlights to watch out for. Finally, there's an essay by the author, Covent Garden's Denis Foreman and his rating.

There's about five pages or so per opera, with longer ones getting much more (there's a whole introduction to The Ring). The style is breezy and colloquial. Foreman writes in a very tongue in cheek way that obviously some people don't get or like. Still, unless you despise dry English humor, it's a lot of fun. The synopses can get a little hard to follow with some of Foreman's jokes at times, however.

Also, there's a large glossary in back with lengthy dissertations (again, very tongue in cheek), and composer/singer/conductor bios. All in all a great resource, even if you already have a book of opera synopsis.

This guide is one of several books that I purchased to learn about opera (so, beginners, listen up - opera experts go elsewhere). This guide is unique, witty, and entertaining. The "irreverent" style of the synopses is fun at first, but if you read several in a row it can wear thin. Read the synopsis of Adriana Lecouvreur that Amazon furnishes online to see if you appreciate the style - it is fairly typical except that some of the others have more of a British accent. The British slang sometimes goes over my head which means that I miss the point that is being made so cleverly. However, the real plus of the irreverent style is that it helps to cast the story in more contemporary light (which makes suspension of disbelief easier).

I like that there are real opinions about the works, not just descriptions. Some guides are so brief and sterile that you don't really get any flavor - not so here, there is flavor everywhere. What you may not be able to tell from the Amazon exerpt is that the four-page synopsis they show for Adriana Lecouvreur is only about half of the coverage of that opera. Following the synopsis is a scene-by-scene description of the action with what to look for at each point, then followed by a news and gossip and a comments section. Very comprehensive. The synopsis is only about half the coverage of each opera. The appendices at the back of the book also are good study material. They include: operatica (an elementary who's who and what's what at the opera house, about 55 pages); composers (brief biographies, about 40 pages); artists (again bios, about 25 pages); and a glossary (about 15 pages).

To learn about opera you need several references. This one is so unique that I say you should get it just for variety. Other good considerations: "Opera 101" for the absolutely best overall introductory study of opera in general. "100 Great Operas" for a more garden variety, shorter, simpler, and easier-to-read synopsis of individual operas. I also like the "Rough Guide to Opera". All of these are very different.

This is a cool book, and I imagine its author is a suave, charming, James Bond kind of guy. But this book is really only appropriate for people at the intermediate phase of opera-loving. The book gives in-depth, clever, witty analyses of 83 operas, covering probably 95% of what you might see at your local opera house. The problem is that Denis Forman's approach assumes that the reader is already a suave, charming, James Bond kind of opera fan, so he leaves out pretty much all of the basics. So...

...if you already know as much, or nearly as much, as Sir Forman (he's a real "Sir," I'm not being sarcastic) does about opera, then you don't need the book.

...if you know nothing, or next to nothing, about opera, then this book is too advanced for you, so skip it.

...if you've seen 5 or 10 operas in your life and want to see more, and/or if you've been building a little nest of cherished opera CDs and you want to take your opera knowledge to the next step, this will be a great book for you.

The book has a few neat little appendices. One is a thumbnail sketch of the greatest conductors of the last 100 years, and another is the same for the greatest singers. Plus, there's a handy little guide to terminology. The first two are brilliant, the last one prioritizes wittiness over clarity.

"A Night at the Opera" would be a great gift for anyone who is a casual, reasonably well-versed opera buff and might be itching to take it to the next level.

On the face of it, Sir Denis Forman's A Night at the Opera would seem to fulfill a need. It is described on the cover as "an irreverent guide to the plots, the singers, and composers, the recordings." Well, perhaps opera could use an irreverent guide, since it has acquired a reputation, more because of its fans than through any inherent flaw in opera itself, of being stuffy (remember that at one time people flocked to the opera the way they go to motion pictures today). The book is certainly irreverent although not as much of a guide as it claims to be.

The book describes 83 operas, supposedly the 83 that had three or more recordings listed in the December 1992 Gramophone CD catalog. While I find it difficult to believe that, almost 10 years after CDs hit the market, there were not three recordings of Lohengrin available, I suppose that is possible.

For each opera, after a one-sentence summary of the plot and a list of the characters, Sir Denis begins with a detailed summary of the story. This can be useful for the newcomer wanting to get an idea of the story of a particular opera. However, the terminally cute summaries get in the way of being able to read the book from cover to cover. The lack of punctuation other than periods is something that others may find less tiresome than I do.

The next section is called "Look Out For." This is a summary of the sections of the music. The author uses a system of one, two or three stars to point out what he considers to be the highlights. Of course, since we are dealing here with his opinions, not everybody is going to agree with them. For example, in his description of Delibes' Lakmé, an opera for which Sir Denis clearly has little use, he gives the popular Bell Song, "a particularly awful piece of kitsch," one star for "bizarrité." Well, as I said, he's entitled to his opinions. Still, this section is useful at least insofar as it helps guide the listener through the opera, especially the listener who is following a recording or broadcast without having the text in front of him.

The next section is called "News and Gossip." This section deals with the background of the opera, problems the composer had getting the opera onstage because of the censors or whatever, initial audience response and so forth. These are usually pretty interesting and for me at least were the most valuable part of the book.

Finally, there is a section called "Comment." Here Sir Denis sums up his opinion of the opera itself. This could have been a fairly valuable section which he unfortunately sabotages by giving each opera a letter grade, usually alpha, beta or gamma, with pluses or minuses or, in one extreme case, "gamma or worse." One difficulty I have with this grading system is that it attempts to objectively quantify something that is strictly a matter of opinion. Even so, Sir Denis tends to pretty much stick to the received opinion about most operas, so Aida and Carmen get well-deserved alpha-pluses, Boheme gets an alpha, Faust and Gioconda each get a beta, and so forth. When he does go against the accepted opinion, he generally qualifies the grade. So Adriana Lecouvreur gets "an unexpected alpha," and I puritani is "for the Belliniphile ... a treasure and an alpha, though for the generality of opera buffs it may not rate quite so high." The other difficulty I have with this system is that it can have a tendency to prejudice the newcomer to opera, especially in the case of operas that don't rank the prized alpha. One of the worst offenders in this regard is Sir Denis' comments on beta-ranked Falstaff: "more people pretend to like Falstaff (and don't) than any other opera" and "it has no sex appeal and no heart [really, you say?], and opera demands both these qualities." While Falstaff is admittedly not an opera for the newcomer, it is truly a work of genius and repays many times over the listener's efforts to get to know it. Sir Denis' comments on Falstaff, which say far more about him than they do about the opera itself, can easily be enough to keep a listener away from Falstaff for an entire lifetime, to that listener's loss. So, a gamma to Sir Denis' well-meaning but misguided attempt to grade these operas.

The book unfortunately has a number of factual errors. I had little trouble running across three without even reading the book in its entirety: In his summary of the plot of Die Fledermaus, he says at the end, "And I will pay for you to go to RADA [the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; the book has a fair number of Anglicisms that will be wasted on many of us on the other side of the Atlantic] so long as you are appropriately grateful says Frank to Adele." Well, it's probably fairly easy to miss that Prince Orlofsky trumps Frank and says that he will take Adele under his wing instead. A little less understandable is the author's statement that the source of Il trovatore was "an original Cammarano," referring to the librettist. It's pretty well documented in many essays and articles on Il trovatore that the source of the opera is Garcia Gutierrez's popular play El trovador. Possibly merely misleading rather than completely erroneous is Sir Denis' statement in the Comment on Tristan und Isolde that Wagner wrote Gotterdammerung first and Das Rheingold last. Wagner did write the librettos for the Ring operas in reverse order, but he wrote the operas themselves in the order in which they were to be performed. At the very least, Sir Denis is not clear here.

So, to sum up, A Night at the Opera tries very hard to be likable at the expense of being truly useful. It reminds me most of having someone around the house with some knowledge of opera and some very definite opinions about it. So long as one is able to sift through the opinions, taking them with a grain of salt, a lot of fun and usefulness can be had from A Night at the Opera. Beta-minus.

I'll add my voice to those who think this book is flawed, but generally pretty good and interesting. Actually, come to think of it, that's not very many voices - most reviews I've seen here are either ecstatic or viscious, and I don't agree with either.

This book is, primarily, a catalogue of operas rated (Alpha-plus, Alpha, Beta, Gamma) according to how well sir Denis likes them, with synopses, a list of "watch for" moments, and a liberal dose of Sir Denis' opinions on everything from how certain arias should make you feel, to Wagner's temperament, to the relative number of snobs that are commonly found at the various opera houses around the world. There's no use getting snippy about how the ratings that are given (e.g., Falstaff gets a Beta, Don Carlo an Alpha-plus..???); except for the historical facts presented, everything else is very clearly intended to be his opinion, nothing more. The book is interesting, witty, and if you don't mind a little Anna Russell-type humor (as other's have said), quite an effective antidote to the masses of outrageously pretensious opera guides out there.
Besides some of his silly commentary, there are 2 things I don't like. First his method of selecting operas is intended to be objective - include only those works that have 3 or more recordings in DGs catalogue. Fair enough, but when all is said and done, I would much rather he include some popular favorites that didn't meet this criterion. Glaring omissons include Lohengrin, Tales of Hoffman, Peter Grimes, Massanet's Manon, Sampson et Dalila, Jenufa, and Gounod's Romeo et Juliet. These he left out in favor of things like 3penny opera, Verdi's Atilla and Vespiri, and Mozart's Iphigenia and Tito. Second, the cover claims that the guide covers recordings as well. It does not - there is nothing resembling a discography. a few pages listing best-selling and suggested recordings would have greatly increased the usefulness of this book.
That said, it's still worth a spot on your book shelf - any kind of useful opera analysis for beginners is going has to be subjective in the first place - why would you buy an opera guide if you didn't want someone's opinion on what you should go see or listen to to next? Why would you want a description and ranking of famous operas if you were already familiar with most of them? More importantly, why would you buy only one opera guide anyway?

This book is terrific. Read it before you listen to or watch an opera--and read it after--and if home, read it during. He's very funny, but in a way that enhances, not diminishes, the pieces themselves. His analyses of the works are very detailed, including a rating, like Michelin, of the highlights. I'm giving it as a gift to my sister, now.

This book is a treat. This guy knows opera, knows how to write, and has a great sense of humor. Forman's treatments of each opera are extensive and very informative, but never dull. Far from it -- who would ever think you could laugh yourself off your chair with a serious opera book?! But this one does it. I love the way he begins each synopsis with, "The One Where . . . ." If everyone read this book, opera would lose its reputation as a stuffy art form.

What can we expect form the man who was responsible for giving us tv series like "The Jewel in the Crown"? Nothing less than an Alpha plus of a book on opera. An alpha plus book it is. Bravo Sir Denis.

There are not too much I can say since all the wonderful reviews especially those by Paul Creamer and "starmoth" covered almost everything. The book is like having an eccentric, worldly uncle giving you personal talks and pointers on different opera. Believe me, you wish Sir Denis was your uncle. It helps tremendously if you have a little knowledge about opera, so you can get the jokes. Even you don't have any prior knowledge, it is a great book to read and not to mention so much fun reading it with Sir Denis' witty comments (imaging Oscar Wilde writing an opera guide). Hopefully, after reading it, you will be inspired to explore the wonderful and crazy world of opera.

By the way, if you like Sir Denis' writing, his autobiography "Son of Adam" may interest you too. It was made into a film "My Life So Far" with a great cast including the very talented Mr. Colin Firth. It is worth to check it out.

Forman isn't fooling anyone. He loves opera, loves to talk about it, and has discovered a perfect way to engage the non-professional enthusiast in an art form that often teeters on the absurd, while delivering the sublime. Yes, it lacks real depth and logic in his chapter on singers (some long dead, some still breathing), but that is only a small part of this enormous and terrifically satisfying undertaking. I refer to it again and again, for both information and a good laugh.