Books: "Opera Wars" By Caitlin Vincent

 

Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future

By Caitlin Vincent

Scribner; hardcover, 304 pages; $30.00; available Tuesday, January 13th

Caitlin Vincent is an award-winning librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, and arts commentator. She writes on the parts for outlets such as The Conversation and Limelight, and her views on opera have been featured in the New York Times. Vincent's librettos have won all three of America's top opera prizes and her vocal work is featured on the Grammy Award-nominated album 40@40. She was the artistic director of The Figaro Project from 2009 to 2014.

Vincent's new book, Opera Wars, is an incisive look at the captivating world of opera. It also at this point is a contentious one, with colorful personalities clashing over content, along with battles being waged for its economic future. 

A lot of this book is pretty straightforward, and it's clear Vincent views it as somewhat of an introduction to the art from, and in a nod to them, there is a glossary of opera terms in the back to deepen their understanding. In addition, there is a detailed look at the individual components of the opera and how much goes into productions.

Through interviews with dozens of opera insiders, Vincent unravels cliches and preconceived ideas. Some of the debates she touches on include how much fidelity should be given to long-dead opera composers whose plots often bring up racial and gender sensitivities, and whether there is a cure for typecasting that forces talented performers out of work, while also keeping other performers boxed into the same roles. 

Vincent also looks at how opera companies kowtow to the demands of traditionalist patrons, which is tied to her look at the industry from top to bottom, and its stubborn resistance to change. Through it all, she shows a deep veneration for the artform of opera, taking the reader to moments on stage that would bring even the most skeptical to be fans.

In this excerpt, Vincent writes of what opera means to her and why she views this as such a pivotal moment: I've dedicated most of my life to opera - singing it, producing it, writing it, researching it. For nearly two decades, the core of my identity was wholly wrapped up in the art form. My teenage years were spent taking voice lessons and listening to opera recordings. My college applications were aimed at the universities offering the best opera programs or boasting the best voice teachers. My twenties were spent performing in operas, auditioning for operas, and starting my own opera company. I was an opera singer. My friends were all opera singers. I even married an opera singer.

Fast-forward to the present, and I now firmly describe myself as a former singer - and only feel a slight twinge when I say it. But I still have a closet full of audition dresses, three boxes of opera scores gathering dust in the garage, and an absurdly large collection of scarves (the default singer accessory). I'm also still inexplicably an opera insider: on a daily basis I work on writing new operas with composers, even as I research the intricacies of the opera industry in my academic day job...

Opera offers so much to love, so much to inspire fierce devotion. There's the music, the way a singer's voice can soar above an orchestra and make the hairs on your arms lift up. There's the spectacle, the visual delight of extravagant costumes and over-the-top sets that magically materialize within the confines of a stage. There's the way the stories tap into the messy realities of human emotion, of words that were written three hundred years ago somehow prodding directly at the memory of your own first love or deeply felt trauma.

AUTHOR APPEARANCE: Caitlin Vincent will be in conversation with Michael Korie, with a signing to follow at Rizzoli Bookstore (1133 Broadway in Manhattan on Tuesday, January 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information, please click here.