Ransom at the Opera

Rating:
Summary: Great fun
Review: Ransom at the Opera is a really enjoyable read that takes every cliche about the opera and gives it a little tweak on the nose. A young upstart opera company makes a bid for publicity by hiring a musical-comedy director to direct their opening production of Carmen. The gambit works, and they become the talk of the town (and the country) due to the popularity with the public, and the disdain of opera afficionados. The popularity brings the production to Chicago, where internal problems and jealousies lead to murder, which is then investigated by series regulars, Det. Jeremy Ransom and his friend and adoptive grandmother, Emily Charters.

The book is filled with spirit and fun, gently lampooning the conventions of the opera and theater folk in general -- BTW, about the issue of opera singers smoking and drinking--apparently some people believe the stereotypes about divas being chemically pure women perpetually spritzing their throats with atomizers. I used to do makeup at the Lyric, and believe me, some of these people smoke like chimneys (yes, backstage!) and drink like fish.

This book is a lot of fun.

Rating:
Summary: Great fun
Review: Ransom at the Opera is a really enjoyable read that takes every cliche about the opera and gives it a little tweak on the nose. A young upstart opera company makes a bid for publicity by hiring a musical-comedy director to direct their opening production of Carmen. The gambit works, and they become the talk of the town (and the country) due to the popularity with the public, and the disdain of opera afficionados. The popularity brings the production to Chicago, where internal problems and jealousies lead to murder, which is then investigated by series regulars, Det. Jeremy Ransom and his friend and adoptive grandmother, Emily Charters.

The book is filled with spirit and fun, gently lampooning the conventions of the opera and theater folk in general -- BTW, about the issue of opera singers smoking and drinking--apparently some people believe the stereotypes about divas being chemically pure women perpetually spritzing their throats with atomizers. I used to do makeup at the Lyric, and believe me, some of these people smoke like chimneys (yes, backstage!) and drink like fish.

This book is a lot of fun.

Rating:
Summary: Not in the Real World!
Review: The opening performance at Chicago's new Sheridan Center for the Performing Arts is David Cunningham and director Marc Berger's interpretation of the classic opera Carmen as a musical. Highly talented but somewhat unknown Riccardo Nuevo stars as Don Jose and Maria Cortez plays Carmen.

The production, which defies operatic guidelines as the performers dance while singing on stage, is successful until the climax. In the final act, Don raises the knife to kill Carmen, but instead the actor Riccardo crumbles to the stage floor. The medical examiner reported Riccardo died from a pulmonary edema, not a probable cause of death for a healthy thirty year old. Detectives Jeremy Ransom and Gerald White are assigned to investigate whether someone poisoned the victim. They start the inquiries by visiting a friend Emily Charters who attended the show. From there, they visit the large cast and support crew trying to uncover the insider who killed the star.

RANSOM AT THE OPERA, the seventh Charters-Ransom tale retains the freshness of the series that cleverly incorporates a cozy inside a police procedural. The story line is filled with several twists and turns, as numerous suspects seem viable with motive, mean, and opportunity available to them. The lead characters are fun to observe in action especially the interrelationships between Jeremy and Emily and Jeremy and Gerald. Fred Hunter turns a night at the opera into an entertaining who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A Time Killer
Review: The worst killing regarding this book is the time it took to read it. As a previous reviewer wrote, this is a good "airplane book." No great shakes as literature, but then, it doesn't purport to be. The denouement was pretty obvious in this murder mystery and no grand clues were laid at the feet of the reader, but if you're just looking for a book that will help you kill some time, this will work.

Rating:
Summary: A Time Killer
Review: The worst killing regarding this book is the time it took to read it. As a previous reviewer wrote, this is a good "airplane book." No great shakes as literature, but then, it doesn't purport to be. The denouement was pretty obvious in this murder mystery and no grand clues were laid at the feet of the reader, but if you're just looking for a book that will help you kill some time, this will work.

Rating:
Summary: Not in the Real World!
Review: This is a mildly amusing book (fine for an airplane read), but for anybody expecting a realistic picture of the opera world and opera singers: warning - this ain't it! Although the author has obviously researched CARMEN itself (words/music are quoted accurately and staging is realistic), he doesn't have a clue about what goes on behind the scenes. If that kind of thing doesn't bother you - read no further. For anyone curious to know how the book diverges from reality, read on (murderer/motivation will not be revealed!):

Operas aren't musicals and CARMEN isn't RENT. It's highly unlikely that an opera produced by a shoestring local California opera company, no matter how innovative and no matter how well-reviewed by a major paper, would capture national attention and run nightly for months on end. Much more likely: the company would give 2 or 3 performances locally. With great opening night reviews, nearby big-city opera cognoscenti would want to check out the show and probably attend the company's next production - and that's about it!

It's also virtually unthinkable that any opera singer would smoke or drink before/during a performance. And as for a leading lady going out to dinner before her opening night performance - no way! She'd be in her dressing room drinking gallons of water or hot tea, nervously vocalizing or babying her voice, and praying that she'd have a huge success. Nor would an up-and-coming singer complain about having to sing in a major city like Chicago because she wanted a vacation - she'd be thrilled! And while I'm at it - she wouldn't be able to afford to hire a fulltime personal assistant (more likely, she'd be up to her eyeballs in debt from her very expensive voice lessons) - and if she was as unpleasant and temperamental as this one is, she would have been thrown out of the show long before opening night!

Finally - these days, singers don't worry about not being taken seriously because they're from from (gasp) Texas! And for the record - there's a big (huge, gaping!) difference in the accents of a a true Spaniard (Castilian) and a native Texan, no matter how fluent (Mexican-flavored)!

If you don't mind any of this, have fun with the book. And if you're interested in knowing more about the real backstage opera scene, check out Manuela Hoelterhoff's "Cinderella & Company" - a highly readable non-fiction book packed with amusing gossip.