Opera Antics and Anecdotes [Paperback]

Stephen B. Tanner (Author), Umberto Taccola (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Opera singers are just like other people, only more so. Often unseen by their public and fans, they erupt in glorious, dazzling displays of human cussedness, using biting banter, one-up-manship, and even sabotage to deal with their main frustration, which is, of course, each other. The irreverent atmosphere backstage is often hilariously in contrast with the reverent hush out front. In terms of chaos on stage, yells from the balcony and intermission twaddle in the foyer, you'll meet dimwitted audience members, meatball tenors, vain soprano fatsos, stilletto-tongued conductors and old-time impresarios and general managers who didn't know their brass from their oboe. The Viennese conductor Franz Schalk said, "Every theater is an asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for incurables."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Marvelously engaging collection of stories and anecdotes ... "Must" reading for all opera fans and followers. -- The Bookwatch, May 2000

About the Author

Stephen Tanner is a humorist, writer, lecturer and retired American Foreign Service Officer with over 20 years' experience working overseas.

Umberto Tàccola is a versatile graphic artist, painter, sculptor, poet, essayist and TV and stage director. He lives in his native Italy.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Sound And Vision (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0920151329
• ISBN-13: 978-0920151327
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,279,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Craziness at the Opera, Both On- and Off-Stage, December 7, 1999

By 

Amy Albani "writer/reader" (Oceanside CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Opera Antics and Anecdotes (Paperback)

When you read this book, you'll probably decide that the Marx Bros. had it right in their nutty movie, "A Night at the Opera." The writer, who's been a working singer himself, recounts lots of amusing anecdotes he's collected over the years, and the resulting book is one that should appeal both to opera-lovers and those who can't stand to hear the "fat lady" or even the thin gentleman hit those high notes. Readers will acquire a good deal of knowledge about the unique world of opera, but they'll never feel they're getting a lesson. It's all about having fun, as some of the chapter titles indicate: "Dumb as a Tenor - Vain as a Prima Donna;" "You Call That Acting?" "Yells From the Balcony - Back Talk from the Stage;" "Opera Sex: Masculine, Feminine, and Neutered;" "Opera is Silly and I Hate It." In a chapter called "Dodo and Aeneas Sung by Lily Ponselle and Ezio Pizza," you'll find examples of malapropisms, as supplied by ticket window and record store clerks -- such as Mozart's "The Nozzle of Figaro," and Gluck's "Orpheus and Uterus." One customer asked a ticket teller for tickets to "Puccini's Tournedo." Before he could reply, the lady's friend corrected her: "Oh no, darling - Tournedo is by Rossini!" Then there are intentional mistakes, made by critics sharpening their needles, as when a Parma reviewer found the singers in Bellini's "I Puritani" so bad that he headlined his review "I Puri Cani" (Translation: "The Pure Dogs." The chapter titled "I Teach Bel Canto, The Others Teach Can Belto" yields some hilarious examples of oddball teaching methods. Many involve the use of props, such as corks, pencils, books, even umbrellas. Often, for purposes of monitoring a student's breath support, the prop was intended to be placed in one or another orifice of the body. (Thankfully, this wasn't true of the umbrella!) The maliciously witty cartoons that introduce each chapter add immeasurably to the book's fun quotient.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Must" reading for all opera fans!, May 4, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Opera Antics and Anecdotes (Paperback)

Opera Antics & Anecdotes is a marvelously engaging collection of stories and anecdotes about the adult world of operatic theater and opera singers. Here are faithful accounts of some of the biggest personalities of the opera stage and their foibles, stresses, egos, tantrums, goofs, gaffs, wit, and wickedness. Opera Antics & Anecdotes is "must" reading for all opera fans and followers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I laughed my opera-singing head off!, July 8, 2003

By 

A. Yeager (Reston, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Opera Antics and Anecdotes (Paperback)

This book is a must-have for all opera afficionados with any sense of humor! I'm talking off-the-charts funny! Some stories were harder to understand when i wasn't familiar with the opera the anectode entailed, but i still got enough to find the joke funny. My personal favorites are: the production of Don Giovanni, when the father's statue rode in on a horse...backwards!, Kaspar's "dying prayer" from Der Freischutz, and of course all the quotable quotes from singers past and present. This book is proof that (in its own words) every theatre is a nuthouse, but an opera theatre is a ward for the incurables!