{"product_id":"the-impossible-art-adventures-in-opera-paperback","title":"The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMatthew Aucoin\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA user's guide to opera--Matthew Aucoin, \"the most promising operatic talent in a generation\" (\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e), describes the creation of his groundbreaking new work, \u003ci\u003eEurydice\u003c\/i\u003e, and shares his reflections on the past, present, and future of opera\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom its beginning, opera has been an impossible art. Its first practitioners, in seventeenth-century Florence, set themselves the unreachable goal of reproducing the wonders of ancient Greek drama, which no one can be sure was sung in the first place. Opera's greatest artists have striven to fuse multiple art forms--music, drama, poetry, dance--into a unified synesthetic experience. The composer Matthew Aucoin, a rising star of the opera world, posits that it is this impossibility that gives opera its exceptional power and serves as its lifeblood. The virtuosity required of its performers, the bizarre and often spectacular nature of its stage productions, the creation of a whole world whose basic fabric is music--opera assumes its true form when it pursues impossible goals. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Impossible Art\u003c\/i\u003e is a passionate defense of what is best about opera, a love letter to the form, written in the midst of a global pandemic during which operatic performance was (literally) impossible. Aucoin writes of the rare works--ranging from classics by Mozart and Verdi to contemporary offerings of Thomas Adès and Chaya Czernowin--that capture something essential about human experience. He illuminates the symbiotic relationship between composers and librettists, between opera's greatest figures and those of literature. Aucoin also tells the story of his new opera, \u003ci\u003eEurydice\u003c\/i\u003e, from its inception to its production on the Metropolitan Opera's iconic stage. \u003ci\u003eThe Impossible Art\u003c\/i\u003e opens the theater door and invites the reader into this extraordinary world.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMatthew Aucoin \u003c\/b\u003eis an American composer, conductor, and writer. His operas have been commissioned and presented by the Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and many other companies, and his instrumental music has been performed by Yo-Yo Ma, the Brentano Quartet, and other artists. He is a cofounder of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) and was the Los Angeles Opera's artist in residence from 2016 to 2020. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 320\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.94 x 7.95 x 4.88 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 07, 2023\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51765746434336,"sku":"9781250858818","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/1b7314af83483fd6e634bdf540c76951.webp?v=1780278692","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-impossible-art-adventures-in-opera-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}