<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty, Witty but not Always Accurate
Review: Atractively packaged with perceptive remarks by Stephen Pettitt, this book is presumably intended to "beef up your music cred" (p8). You don't need to know much about opera to see a bit wrong with this timeline entry - "1789 William Bligh and 18 men are cast adrift in a boat in the Pacific after mutinying on the HMS Bounty. They eventually reach the Pitcairn Islands." (p54) Fletcher Christian mutinied, not Bligh. The mutineers took HMS Bounty and sailed it to Pitcairn Island (not Islands). Bligh, in the boat, sailed across the Pacific, through Torres Strait to Batavia, Java, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), in one of the greatest feats of seamanship of all time. As for musical knowledge try this three sentence entry - "Carmen Jones This was a 1954 adaptation of Bizet's masterpiece ... using an all-black cast and set in a First World War army unit. ... The new situation was credible but despite the great sporano Marilyn horne playing the title role, Bizet's original score remains a lot richer." (p59) First, Hammerstein's stage work was premiered in December 1943. Second, it was set in a Second World War army unit. Third, great mezzo Marilyn Horne is not a great soprano, although she sang in this register during her German years. Fourth, she is not black but of Dutch descent. Fifth, she did not play this role on stage, for she would have been either fourteen or nine years old (depending on which source is correct, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera or her biography) in 1943. Sixth, she did not play the role in the 1954 film, but dubbed it for Dorothy Dandridge who played the role. There are other trivial errors which do not suggest experiential knowledge of the works.e.g. We are told that Menotti's the Telephone has a "cast of one", yet this has been one of the more frequently performed of twentieth-century operas. There are more errors but why go on? The dustjacket states that Mr Pettitt reviews for The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, for the magazines Opera and The Gramophone. I shall read his opinions with the perspective gained from reading his book. John Lanigan-O'Keeffe
Rating:
Summary: Pretty, Witty but not Always Accurate
Review: Atractively packaged with perceptive remarks by Stephen Pettitt, this book is presumably intended to "beef up your music cred" (p8). You don't need to know much about opera to see a bit wrong with this timeline entry - "1789 William Bligh and 18 men are cast adrift in a boat in the Pacific after mutinying on the HMS Bounty. They eventually reach the Pitcairn Islands." (p54) Fletcher Christian mutinied, not Bligh. The mutineers took HMS Bounty and sailed it to Pitcairn Island (not Islands). Bligh, in the boat, sailed across the Pacific, through Torres Strait to Batavia, Java, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), in one of the greatest feats of seamanship of all time. As for musical knowledge try this three sentence entry - "Carmen Jones This was a 1954 adaptation of Bizet's masterpiece ... using an all-black cast and set in a First World War army unit. ... The new situation was credible but despite the great sporano Marilyn horne playing the title role, Bizet's original score remains a lot richer." (p59) First, Hammerstein's stage work was premiered in December 1943. Second, it was set in a Second World War army unit. Third, great mezzo Marilyn Horne is not a great soprano, although she sang in this register during her German years. Fourth, she is not black but of Dutch descent. Fifth, she did not play this role on stage, for she would have been either fourteen or nine years old (depending on which source is correct, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera or her biography) in 1943. Sixth, she did not play the role in the 1954 film, but dubbed it for Dorothy Dandridge who played the role. There are other trivial errors which do not suggest experiential knowledge of the works.e.g. We are told that Menotti's the Telephone has a "cast of one", yet this has been one of the more frequently performed of twentieth-century operas. There are more errors but why go on? The dustjacket states that Mr Pettitt reviews for The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, for the magazines Opera and The Gramophone. I shall read his opinions with the perspective gained from reading his book. John Lanigan-O'Keeffe
<< 1 >>
| 
