Crochets and Quavers

"This is really fun. It’s kind of autobiographical, the revelations of Max Maretzek who claims to have brought Italian opera to America in 1848. It’s a series of letters to various people about his experiences – the first one is to the composer Hector Berlioz – and they’re all written in a quite witty way. But they give the casual reader a fantastic insight into the chaotic, brilliant and fascinating world of opera at that time, because it was tremendously popular. Opera took off very rapidly in America. There are masses of tiny little opera houses all over the country. Nowadays they are often used as dance halls or warehouses, but as you go through some of the older towns in America, you suddenly see on this wooden building on the side of the road, “Opera House”, and Maretzek was part of all that. Also, I’ve always thought that the real heroes of opera are not really the singers or the conductors or the musicians, it’s the people who organize it. Because it’s so potentially full of chaos: you’ve got these giant egos, excessive financial demands, and people not turning up, and falling sick at the last minute. So this a great book because it really captures the chaos of opera."