Cinderella & Company: Backstage at the Opera with Cecilia Bartoli

by Manuela Hoelterhoff

Book Overview

A wickedly funny look at opera today--the feuds and deals, maestros and managers, divine voices and outsized egos--and a portrait of the opera world's newest superstar at a formative point in her life... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679444793
• ISBN13: 9780679444794
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The Greatest Mezzo-Soprano of All Time

I write of the DVD that was released close to the publication of the book that displays the same photo. We begin this journey in April of 1991, on a gondola in Venice, when Cecilia Bartoli is at the outset of her career at the age of twenty-four. Accompanying her through the passageways of Venice we arrive at the opera house, La Fenice, where she is recording Rossini's Semiramide with the Opera Chorus and Orchestra of Venice. In a touch of artistry it segues to her home in Rome where she is rehearsing subtleties of the same aria with her mother and teacher. Her mother (Silvana Bazzoni-Bartoli), a lyric soprano, explains her thoughts on singing and "refining the sprit, realizing her full potential, and 'dare tutta la gioia di questo dono' (give all the joy of this gift)." Cecilia expresses her desire to "sviluppare i doti che il Padre Eterno mi ha dato al massimo" (develop the gifts that the Eternal Father has given me to the maximum). Directors and impresarios speak of her future and hopeful fulfillment of the promise that this voice and persona holds. A voice that has met and continues to surpass these expectations. Cecilia Bartoli is a legend in her own time and for all time. This is a thrilling and engaging invitation to walk with la Bartoli as she progresses from gifted child to guided greatness by the loving hand of her mother and teacher. A stellar production by Melvyn Bragg, Melissa Raimes, Tony Webb and David Thomas. by Elziabeth Wallace, author and illustrator of Jesus Christ In His Own Words: a Compilation of the Canonical and Gnostic Gospels JesusChristinHisownwords(dot)com Jesus Christ In His Own Words

Most amusing book

Sourballs shouldn't read this, November 26, 2005 By Carter Jefferson (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews This book amused me no end, and, as one who likes opera but knows little about the opera world, I found it quite informative. I wrote this in 1999, after reading the earlier reviews, but wanted to get my name on it, so it's on top even though it belongs chronologically near the bottom. I decided to write this note after reading all the nasty reviews by the sourballs above. If you are a sourball, don't read this book. If you aren't, you'll find that the five-star reviews are correct.

Sourballs shouldn't read this

This book amused me no end, and, as one who likes opera but knows little about the opera world, I found it quite informative. I wrote this in 1999, after reading the earlier reviews, but wanted to get my name on it, so it's on top even though it belongs chronologically near the bottom. I decided to write this note after reading all the nasty reviews by the sourballs above. If you are a sourball, don't read this book. If you aren't, you'll find that the five-star reviews are correct.

What it's really like!

Opera is a magical world, made by mere mortals. Hoelterhoff tells us how, with wit and understanding, it's done. The talent and the foibles. And it's fun to read!

A witty and insightful look at the "opera racket" today

Judging from other customer comments, Manuela Hoelterhoff and her new book certainly have ticked off a lot of people. Not me. This is the most entertaining book on the opera business that I have read in some time. It is also one of the most revealing and insightful. As those who read (past tense) Ms. Hoelterhoff's music criticism in the Wall Street Journal know, she writes with pungency, wit, and a genuine flair for turning a phrase - literary talents which often, though not always, compensate for a lack of real critical insight or profound musical understanding of the works or performances under review. It follows that the weakest parts of this book are when the author is writing about music itself. (Do we really need all those silly little thumbnail plot summaries of operas?) Hoelterhoff's greatest strengths are as a reporter, observer and chronicler, and as that is mostly what she does here, it is enough. Some may find Hoelterhoff's humor catty. Perhaps it is, but it is also very funny. I laughed out loud often while reading this book. I, too, could have done with fewer fat jokes, but I also think a singer's size is a legitimate subject for commentary. He or she is, after all, a performer, and grossly excess weight can detract from the artistic impression on stage. (Can one imagine Jane Eaglen singing Madama Butterfly?)Although nominally about mezzo-soprano superstar Cecilia Bartoli, "Cinderella and Company" is more about the Company than about Cinderella. Bartoli's fans may be disappointed, but this focus suits me fine. Bartoli is a fine artist, but she does not sound like a particularly interesting person, and she certainly has not had a career that in length, variety or artistic significance would warrant an entire book about her, except in her manager's dreams. (In fact, I had no interest in reading this book until I heard that it was about much more than C.B.) Instead, Hoelterhoff has written an inside look at the music business itself, and at the creators (manufacturers?) of superstardom in the world of opera today - the agents, promoters, publicists, record companies and opera administrators who shape public perception of opera singers and who actually get the show/singer "on the road," or on stage. Bartoli and her career are not so much the central subject of the book as they are the recurring theme in a rondo. The main characters here are the "supporting cast" behind the scenes: Herbert Breslin, the Big P.'s manager; Matthew Epstein, promoter/concert organizer extraordinare; Jack Mastroianni, Bartoli's manager; and Met director Joseph Volpe. The "opera racket," as Virgil Thomson might have called it, has changed significantly in the past thirty years. Time was, in Ze Oldt Days, when an opera singer's reputation was actually made on the opera stage - in performance. Recordings were important to a big career, but they generally followed success in the opera house rather th