Product Overview
If the opera world is full of intrigue, double meanings, and devious dramatics, then no place exemplifies this more than the world-famous Metropolitan Opera, where politics, ambition, and oversized egos have traditionally taken center stage along with some of the worlds richest music. Drawing on her fifteen years as its press representative, Johanna Fiedler explodes the traditional secrecy that surrounds the Met in this wonderfully entertaining account of its tumuluous history.
Fiedler chronicles the Mets early days as a home for legends like Toscanini, Mahler, and Caruso, and gives a fascinating account of the middle years when haughty blue-bloods battled stubborn adminstrators for control of a company that would emerge as Americas premiere opera house. She takes us behind the grand gold-curtain stage in more recent years as well, showing how musical superstars like Luciano Pavarotti, Plcido Domingo, and Kathleen Battle have electrified performances and scandalized the public. But most revelatory are Fiedlers portrayals of James Levine and Joseph Volpe and their practically parallel ascendanciesLevine rising from prodigy to artistic director, Volpe advancing from stagehand to general managerand their once strained relationship. Weaving together the personal, economic, and artistic struggles that characterize the Mets long and vibrant history, Molto Agitato is a must-read saga of power, wealth, and, above all, great music.
