David Littlejohn (1)

An engaging book of essays about opera that is both thoughtful and entertaining. I enjoyed the essays because they expanded my understanding of the operatic art while reinforcing the lessons I've learned from my personal experience of decades of appreciating the art of opera.

I'm troubled by this. 30 years on, several of Littlejohn's "essays" read more like extended blog posts.

I came to the book having recently watched Peter Sellars' three iconoclastic productions of the Mozart-DaPonte operas, which caused a stir in the late '80s, were filmed for television, and earn an entire chapter of Littlejohn's ire here. Yet the chapter feels more like an extended diatribe against directorial modernising and updating of operas (some points valid, some less so) than a show more useful contribution to the debate.

Perhaps a product of its moment. show less