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The Passion of Song
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Cecilia Bartoli, at the age of twenty-nine, has risen to the top of the opera world. Her astonishing mezzo coloratura has been called the finest since those of Marilyn Horne and Teresa Berganza, her recordings have sold more than a million copies, and her concerts and operas are sold out in hours. What has made Bartoli an overnight sensation? Why does she fascinate so many people? In this first book about the singer, Kim Chernin and Renate Stendhal, go in search of the mystery behind the legend. Kim Chernin first heard Bartoli when she was hardly a name, let alone a legend. Here she tells the story of a fan's quest to meet her idol and understand the nature of a musical obsession. Renate Stendhal adds a detailed performance guide that examines the first decade of Bartoli's career as an opera singer, from her first public appearance on the Italian TV show "Fantastico," to her debuts at La Scala and the New York Metropolitan. Stendhal analysis Bartoli's development as a comic, romantic and dramatic performer.
"This book . . . chronicles the twin careers of Cecilia Bartoli—a still-young world star possessed of real vocal endowment and an estimable degree of innate musicianship, who wields in performance a restless, unleashed charm—and of her mother, Silvana Bazzoni, a lyric soprano ex-chorister of the Rome Opera . . . ."
James McCourt, The New York Times Book Review
"Cecilia Bartoli, still under 30, has made her mark so far as a coloratura mezzo singing the lighter repertory of Mozart and Rossini in bel canto style. She began as a dancer and became an actor, and she specializes in bringing her characters physically to life, much as Maria Callas did. Her teacher is her mother, Silvana Bazzoni, who sang Manon Lescaut in her youth. Chernin reviews five Bartoli performances in Berkeley and transcribes a conversation with her in Houston. She is obsessed with the role Bartoli's mother played in shaping her daughter's career, and she brings to life the intense discipline Bazzoni teaches, which concentrates first on singing notes purely, with superior breath control, and then on introducing words that are clearly pronounced. Stendhal contributes a guide to some 10 years of Bartoli's opera performances; it consists mostly of plot summaries with commentary on Bartoli's interpretations. Altogether, she and Chernin give us not a biography but two adoring fans' personal perspectives on a most promising singer."
Alan Hirsch, Booklist
". . . a book which deals frankly and ecstatically with the profoundly erotic relationship it sees sweeping up and subsuming both the diva and her (prototypically female) fan. That caveat duly entered, more questioning opera lovers might find much here to stimulate, to provoke and intrigue. Conventional lives have tended to objectify and elevate the performer; without diminishing or demystifying Bartoli's magnetism, this book attempts to go beyond euphoria to identify the nature of her appeal and the part the punter plays in it all."
Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman
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