The Ultimate Art: Essays Around and about Opera

This is a very well-written and highly engaging work which covers many facets of opera, from performance histories and traditions, to singing and staging techniques- a little of everything. The author is obviously a devoted and knowledgeable opera lover of many years' experience. In the excellent introduction, which is longer than most of the subsequent chapters, Littlejohn makes generally successful attempts to codify such elusive concepts as "good" versus "bad" opera. If there is any fault whatsoever, it is the fact that, in his enthusiastic discussions of a subject he obviously loves, the author contradicts himself at times. He declares himself willing to place his faith in the hands of stage directors to enliven and re-invigorate the tired old classics through ingenious staging concepts, yet he condemns the likes of Peter Sellars and other directors who attempt to do the exact thing Littlejohn was urging just a few pages before. If he considers i! t incumbent upon these directors to do something new with opera's classic works, he must also accept the results, however misguided. But he is an unusually open-minded critic, and can even include some (mostly) impartial analysis of Richard Strauss' "Elektra" in a chapter on Greek-derived operas, for example, despite the fact that he acknowledges disliking the work tremendously. A lesser critic might have ignored "Elektra" altogether, but as it is one of the most prominent and successful operas based on a Greek source, Littlejohn dutifully includes it and gives the opera much sharp analysis. His tastes are quite broad, and while I do not personally care much at all for the likes of Handelian opera, to take one example, I found every essay thoroughly readable and enjoyable, and learned much that I did not previously know. This is probably the most wide-ranging single book on opera on my bookshelf, and any opera fan will find much to enjoy within its pages.