Metropolitan Opera

This commemorative book celebrates Maestro James Levine's forty years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. It presents a chronology of Levine's tenure, illustrated with tributes, anecdotes, and short essays by Levine and many of the people he worked with at the Met (mostly singers, but also administrators, musicians, directors, students, et al.) The book is lavishly illustrated with numerous pictures from the various productions described in the text.

Given Levine's long tenure in a leading role at the Met (his titles have included, Principal Conductor, Music Director, and Artistic Director), it was no surprise to see a lot of praise for his musicianship. I particularly appreciated the way the various tributes and anecdotes in this book illustrate Levine's other strengths---his ability to work with and advise singers of all stripes, his sheer joy in the music he creates, his team-oriented approach, his ability to build and maintain a world-class orchestra and chorus, and his efforts to expand the operatic repertoire both with modern works and with less commonly performed historic pieces.

Since I grew up in New York and started attending the Met at about the same time Levine started conducting there, I enjoyed this book tremendously. It was a fun trip down memory lane, as I heard (or heard of) many of the performers who contributed to the book. I also recognized many of the sets and productions in the pictures, either from seeing them live, or from the various Live from the Met telecasts. This book also provided new insights and new appreciation for the magic that has happened at the Met under Levine's leadership.… (more)

The story in outline: randy husband with roving eye chases reluctant young woman while neglected wife schemes to rewin husband’s affections. Meanwhile, woman’s fiancé struggles with issues of trust as youthful neighbour comes to terms with coming of age.
Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" embodied the spirit of the French Revolution when it premiered in 1786, portraying the comic triumph of skilled and quick-witted middle-class servants over their pompous and decadent royal masters. The Beaumarchais play from which this opera drew inspiration had been banned in Paris for its volatile political content: finding dark humour in class power struggles was dangerous business in pre-Revolutionary France. For the many fans of the effervescent masterpiece today, its revolutionary overtones are all but lost. Yet it endures because Mozart went beyond the class struggles of his day to weave many of life's timeless themes into the opera: love and betrothal, betrayal and justice, greed and vengence, innocent youth and jaded old age. Characters who Beaumarchais sketched as ideologically shaded silhouettes gain through Mozart’s music the hearts and souls of persons one might embrace. A youth trembling with new passions. A young man confident of his cleverness. A loving wife, forlorn, her husband estranged. Couples that, like real couples, can both quarrel and forgive.… (more)