Living Opera

Selected as one of the Best Music Books of 2010 by The Independent here is a wonderful collection of 20 wide-ranging interviews with the preeminent opera singers conductors and directors working on and behind the stage today. Joshua Jampol invites opera-lovers to listen in as performers speak in frank terms about their strengths and weaknesses conductors discuss the state of contemporary opera and directors talk through the complexities involved in staging a successful production. Jampol has unprecedented access and the table of contents reads like a who''s who of the global opera world featuring Fleming Domingo Ramey Villazon Dessay Conlon Salonen Nagano Boulez Carsen Chéreau and more. Each interview highlights a distinctive voice speaking about his or her career path first break colleagues major influences audiences critics and all the diverse professions making up the emotional and extravagant world of the lyric arts. Jampol brings immense knowledge and a wonderful flair to these conversations allowing his subjects to follow their thoughts wherever they lead and revealing in the process a more intimate reflective side of this constellation of operatic stars.