Opera Lively - The Interviews

This book released by Opera Lively Press is a pleasure to read for everybody who cares about opera (beginners are also welcome). It contains the best of one year of journalism from Opera Lively. Singers, conductors, stage and video directors, scholars, educators, opera company managers, and composers describe in eloquent terms the entire gamut of the operatic experience. Profound insights about characters and works are side by side with discussions of controversial topics such as Regietheater, critical editions, the cult of image, and the future of the art form.

Singers include Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, Danielle de Niese, Deborah Voigt, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Piotr Beczala, Matthew Polenzani, Thomas Hampson, Luca Pisaroni, Erwin Schrott, Vivica Genaux, Saimir Pirgu, Leah Crocetto, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Bryan Hymel, Paulo Szot, Amanda Echalaz, and others. Maestro Daniele Gatti, Maestro Leon Botstein, Maestro and composer Frédéric Chaslin, Maestro Sir John Eliot Gardiner, stage director Thaddeus Strassberger, video director François Roussillon, musicologist Dr. Philip Gossett, veteran singer Sylvia Sass, contemporary composer Robert Ward, educator Dr. Marilyn Taylor, opera company directors Maestro James Meena, Maestro James Allbritten, and Eric Mitchko, and many other operatic professionals and thinkers complete the roster of 39 interviewees.

Opera journalist Luiz Gazzola, MD, PhD, the senior editor at Opera Lively, uses his three decades of experience as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and opera lover to engage with the artists in a pleasant and conversational manner, while asking musically well-informed and intellectually challenging questions, in unusually deep interviews.

From a reader: "I've read each and every one of the interviews, and I can say that, in my opinion, this is high-quality stuff. Of course, there are many interviews being offered, both online and in print, with opera singers, conductors, composers,... but these interviews are at the same time insightful, profound and entertaining, a rare combination."