Opera Anecdotes

There are several books of opera anecdotes in print, but I am particularly partial to this one. There seems to be a basic repertoire of stories that make the rounds. Pompous composers and even more pompous singers fill the history books with their adventures and faux pas. What's different about Mr. Mordden's collection is that he includes brief biographical sketches of the lives of many composers (Gluck, Mozart, Wagner, Rossini etc.), singers (Caruso, Flagstad, Callas) and musicians (Toscanini, Beecham). These bios, sometime covering two pages or more, provide interesting incidents and commentaries on the lives of the famous. There is even a short history of the castrati. All in all when you finish this book you've not only had some good laughs, but have learned some interesting new things about the world of opera.

Don't pick up this book at bedtime if you have to get up early next morning. You might not be able to put it down until you finish it.The book is not a historical source, but nor does it purport to be. He tells of an organ-grinder who was playing the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana. Mascagni passes by and advises him to play it at a different tempo. The next day, the organ-grinder is seen wearing a sign saying "Student of Mascagni." In other anecdote collections, the organ-grinder is either a "Student of Verdi" playing an excerpt from Il Trovatore or a "Student of Puccini" playing Musetta's Waltz from La Boheme. Could this be a true story which happened three times?The author occasionally strays from the assigned topic of anecdotes to discuss individual composers and performers. He makes value judgments with which the reader may or may not agree. He certainly does not esteem Puccini as highly as I do.Just one grievance: the author assumes that every reader knows every well-known opera ever written. He refers to operatic characters and operatic highlights without telling the reader which opera he is referring to. I felt like I was the only opera-lover in the world who was too stupid to know that Kundry is a character in Parsifal.

This book consists of operatic biographies-by-anecdote. If anyone remotely connected to opera in the past three hundred years said or did anything clever, then he or she is lovingly quoted in "Opera Anecdotes." Sometimes, as in "The Famous Story of Handel's Cook," the reader might have to strain to find the humor:"How great a composer was Gluck? Some say very great---"The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera" calls him `opera's second founder.' Handel said not so great: `he knows no more uff counterpoint zan mein cook!'" Handel's rollicking commentary is included in Mordden's anecdotal sketch of Christoph Willibald Gluck.Even the author admits to the existence of operatic greats who are not remembered for their sparkling wit:"One doesn't expect [Arnold] Schoenberg anecdotes---is this not the most austere character in music?---remote, complex, patriarchal, silently disapproving? Schoenberg is like Moses, bringing a new code of behavior to his people---twelve-tone composition---and raging when they prove unworthy."Of course, Mordden does go on to tell Schoenberg's story in three pages worth of anecdotes, many of them grim---there really is nothing humorous about twelve-tone composition, or about being chased out of Germany by the Nazis ("Maus" comics notwithstanding.) Usually this book looks at the lighter side of operatic life, and it includes my favorite story about Leo Slezak, who must have been one of the funniest tenors ever to grace the Wagnerian repertoire. Here is the "Classic Leo Slezak Story:""Backstage at `Lohengrin' before his first entrance, Slezak was bemused to see the swan-boat take off just before he got into it: a stagehand had jumped the cue. As the boat glided into the opera without its silver knight, Slezak turned to someone and asked, `Wann geht der nächste Schwann?': What time's the next swan?"If you love opera, you'll love "Opera Anecdotes." If you don't---well, Dave Barry has also written a book about music.