Author:Roger Parker,Carolyn Abbate
Opera is in many ways the most extraordinary artistic medium of the last four hundred years. Prohibitively expensive and patently unrealistic, it can nevertheless paint the human passions with astonishing power and drama. This book, the first new, full-length, single-volume history of opera for more than a generation provokes in-depth discussions of many works by the greatest opera composers, from Monteverdi, Handel and Mozart, to Verdi and Wagner, to Strauss, Puccini, Berg, and Britten. There are lively discussions of opera's social, political and literary background, its economic cicumstances and the almost continual polemics that have accompanied its development through the centuries. Central to the book is an exploration of the tensions that have always sustained and enlivened opera. Abbate and Parker examine the problems that opera has faced in the last half century, when new works - which were once opera's life-blood - have shrunk to a tiny minority, have largely failed to find a permanent place in the repertoire.
Yet the book's final message is one of celebration. Even if the majority of opera's most popular and enduring works were written in what is now a remote European past, in circumstances very different from our own, and the viability of contemporary opera is ever more in question, opera as an art form remains extraordinarily buoyant and challenging. It continues to transform people physically, emotionally, and intellectually, and to articulate human experience in ways no other art form can match.
The narrative builds to an action-packed finale... Daniel Pirrie... tackles a range of accents with great skill, and does a decent impersonation of Captain Jack himself.
—— Richard McGinlay , www.sci-fi-online.comThe next best thing to Morrissey’s autobiography
—— GQ magazineA superb achievement
—— MojoThe perfect gift for any Morrissey fan
—— Daily TelegraphA witty, well-informed collection of fact and anecdote, full of fascinating bits and pieces
—— UncutGoddard widens his previous book's mixture of detail and passionate celebration to Morrissey's entire aesthetic universe
—— Dave Hill , The GuardianAn exemplary introduction to a star in the making...excellent at placing the sexuality-stretching Bowie within the context of a decade struggling to find its identity
—— MetroPart historical commentary, part fanboy's breakdown of every Bowie song from the era
—— The TimesDoggett exhaustively chases Bowie's inspirations and intentions as he morphs from the gender-bending glam rock Ziggy Stardust to the plastic soul-spinning Thin White Duke
—— Daily TelegraphThis book tracks Bowie's ever changing masks and alter egos... [and] helps answer the question that most Bowie fans have asked at one time or another: what the hell is he on about?
—— Irish TimesDoggett is no uncritical fan – his intimate knowledge of the industry lends him a cool eye when assessing the extent of Bowie’s originality… Overall it will leave readers of a certain age yearning for the days when they could throw their homework on the fire and take the car downtown
—— Sally Morris , Daily MailSuperb
—— The Wordan eminently readable and richly entertaining journey through Rod’s life...with a real sense of fun pervading...a rollicking read
—— Beat Magazinewonderfully written...a page-turner
—— Pat KennyRidiculously funny and astonishingly candid, Rod Stewart's memoir is the rock autobiography of the decade
—— Daily MailOne of the most entertaining, revealing, captivating books of the year
—— IndependentIt’s impossible not to warm to him in this account of booze, drugs and blondes…The tales of on-the-road bad behavior…leave nothing to the imagination…his painful admission of how ex-wife Rachel Hunter broke his heart reveal a man happy to wear his heart on his sleeve….And he wears it well…
—— Daily MailIn Rod Stewart’s raucous, laddish autobiography….his attitude towards women in his life is frequently indefensible but otherwise it’s often laugh-out-load funny
—— HeraldRod Stewart reveals all in a hilarious and, at times, moving book…A brilliant read—you’ll be hooked.
—— Best[Rod] has warm good humour and a nice line in self-deprecation...He wears it well—and tells it even better.
—— Daily MailBy some distance the most entertaining of last year’s...rock star memoirs.
—— Uncut OnlineThis book takes readers on an adventure, that is at times deeply moving, through the life of one of the UK's greatest singers.
—— Hello! onlineRuthlessly entertaining
—— telegraph.co.uk
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