Sarah Lenton

Quite pleasing, in its way. It is always difficult to read about a production which one has not seen, and the writing style and audience for this book seems somewhat mixed. It's not quite sure whether it wants to aim at a young audience interested in learning about production, or an older audience experiencing the nitty-gritty of something, or even people like myself who have years of experience doing the very things the book talks about.

This confusion aside, I quite enjoyed plummeting into the depths of wigs, props, textual queries, and front-of-house mayhem. Readers searching for scandal will not find it here, and those who want a look at a more confronting production where core disagreements abound would be better off looking at 1984's "The Ring: Anatomy of an Opera" or perhaps 1973's "The Carmen Chronicle". But for those of us who don't mind plodding along with all the minutiae of an ordinary but extraordinary experience, and who wish to explore the hundreds of minds and bodies it takes to entertain people for a few hours in an opera house, this is worthwhile.… (more)