Bravo!: A Guide to Opera for the Perplexed

With wit and insight, Bravo! tackles what can be a daunting subject and presents it in delicious and easily digested bits of biography, history, and lore, making it the perfect introduction to opera for readers of any musical persuasion. Tracing the fascinating development of opera through all of its major works and composers, Bravo! covers everything from the differences between various opera styles to the nature of different voice categories and their major roles. Infusing his narrative with informed opinion, provocative asides, humorous anecdotes, and extraordinary love of the music, Scherer also touches on such interesting topics as the origin of the diva, the roles of madness and death, opera etiquette, and why we shout "Bravo!" when we are thrilling moved. From the sweeping grandeur of Verdi's Aida to the artful enchantment of Mozart's Magic Flute, Scherer explains what to listen for during a performance and how to further your knowledge of this vast subject.

Opera is the fastest-growing performance art in the country, enjoying a 35% increase in its audience in the past decade, according to the New York Times. But freelance music critic Scherer provides only a pallid explanation for this popularity, suggesting that opera's "emotional high" is the audience-grabber. Disappointingly, his handbook to this enormous subject provides the neophyte with only a suggestion of that high, via dollops of information that on occasion are very basic, such as his clarification of the different voices (coloratura soprano and lyric soprano, for example). Scherer is at his most instructive when he gives his opinions free rein, as when he likens composer Meyerbeer (1791-1864) to Andrew Lloyd Webber. He shows how opera evolved in 16th-century Italy, then spread to France, Germany and Russia as various styles, baroque, opera seria, romanticism, etc., developed. Scherer's analysis of Russian opera is interesting for his explication of the friction between the Slavophile camp of Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky and Westernizers such as Tchaikovsky, a friction that marks Russian literature as well. Readers will be struck by the paucity of American opera, which is only now finding its voice thanks to the likes of Menotti and Glass. If this introduction to opera is a bit sketchy, Scherer is nonetheless such a consummate opera lover that his enthusiasm ultimately carries the day.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Scherer, music critic for the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio and a contributor on opera and classical music for several magazines, has written an informative little handbook on an art form that is perplexing to many. However, if those who are baffled will pull Scherer's book off the shelf, they soon will see the form clearly through the eyes of an ardent fan. The book is chock full of opera facts, history, and lore. Scherer's discussions of the various styles of opera (Italian, German, French, Russian, English, and American) are concise yet well connected to the overall picture. Operetta is not excluded, nor is opera etiquette or even famous foods named after opera singers (ever hear of Peach Melba?). There is not a dearth of opera appreciation books [See John W. Freeman's The Metropolitan Opera Stories of Great Operas, Volume 2, Phil Goulding's Ticket to the Opera, and Alexander Waugh's Opera: A New Way of Listening, reviewed above.?Ed.], but considering how inexpensive this amiable introduction is, most collections should add it.?Kathleen Sparkman, Baylor Univ. Lib., Waco, Tex.--, but considering how inexpensive this amiable introduction is, most collections should add it.?Kathleen Sparkman, Baylor Univ. Lib., Waco, Tex.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.