Publisher Description

If the opera world is full of "intrigue, double meanings, and devious dramatics," then no place exemplifies this more than the world-famous Metropolitan Opera, where politics, ambition, and oversized egos have traditionally taken center stage along with some of the world's richest music. Drawing on her fifteen years as its press representative, Johanna Fiedler explodes the traditional secrecy that surrounds the Met in this wonderfully entertaining account of its tumuluous history.Fiedler chronicles the Met's early days as a home for legends like Toscanini, Mahler, and Caruso, and gives a fascinating account of the middle years when haughty blue-bloods battled stubborn adminstrators for control of a company that would emerge as America's premiere opera house. She takes us behind the grand gold-curtain stage in more recent years as well, showing how musical superstars like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Kathleen Battle have electrified performances and scandalized the public. But most revelatory are Fiedler's portrayals of James Levine and Joseph Volpe and their practically parallel ascendancies-Levine rising from prodigy to artistic director, Volpe advancing from stagehand to general manager-and their once strained relationship. Weaving together the personal, economic, and artistic struggles that characterize the Met's long and vibrant history, Molto Agitato is a must-read saga of power, wealth, and, above all, great music.

Author Biography

Johanna Fiedler is the daughter of Arthur Fiedler, the long-time conductor of the Boston Pops, and has worked in the field of classical music for many years. She is the author of Arthur Fiedler: Papa, the Pops, and Me. She lives in New York City.

Review

"Weav[es] telling vignettes and interseting interpretations into a rich tapestry that vividly describes what goes on behind the great gold curtain. [Fiedler] deserves an ovation." --The Dallas Morning News

"Elegant. . . . It's the opera book that tells you what you really want to know, not by gossiping, but by sensitive discussion of facts long-hidden behing [the Met's] Kremlin-like façade." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

"High-toned dish. . . . [The Met is] creepy one minute, transcendentally beautiful the next, but never, ever boring." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Compelling. . . .Lively, in-depth. . . . Fiedler doesn't stint in her tales about those temperamental artists who make the business of running an opera company unlike any other." --The Wall Street Journal

"Provides a unique perspective not only on the opera scene, but on the changing landscape of American society since the Met's opening in 1883. . . . It also serves up some pretty spicy dish." —The Boston Globe

"The juicy survival saga of a leaky vessel that has managed to stay afloat despite constant threats of disaster and a passenger list out of Ship of Fools." —The New York Observer

"Evenhanded. . . . Brings an emotional immediacy to events." --The New York Times

"Opera buffs looking for a chatty, informative and basically fair take on the Met will enjoy the book." —The New York Times Book Review

"There's plenty of gossip. . . . Digs into power struggles, plus diva dramas, even a murder." --USA Today

"A great pleasure to read. Simultaneously thoughtful, well-written and trashy . . . an ideal beach read for opera buffs." —Time Out New York

"Fiedler succeeds in exposing all the dirty linen that she used to work so hard to conceal: the affairs, the squables, the nasty memos." --The New Yorker

"High-toned dish. . . . [The Met is] creepy one minute, transcendentally beautiful the next, but never, ever boring." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A rare, gossipy, behind-the-scenes look into the life of New York's Metropolitan Opera, where passions are as dramatic offstage as on." --Town and Country

"A facsinating survey of the misdeeds going on in the back. . . . A must-read for all operaphiles." --The State (Columbia, SC)

"Breezy. . . . Fiedler makes old scandal as intriguing as topical news about its current Artistic Director James Levine and General Manager Joseph Volpe." –The Austin Chronicle

"A thorough-going, eyeball-rolling institutional history. . . . One couldn't ask for a more knowledgeable guide to the inner wrokings of the Met." --Kirkus Reviews

"Fiedler delivers the goods. . . . By the time I finished Molto Agitato, I was ready for more." --John Griffin, San Antonio Express-News

Review Quote

"Weav[es] telling vignettes and interseting interpretations into a rich tapestry that vividly describes what goes on behind the great gold curtain. [Fiedler] deserves an ovation." --The Dallas Morning News "Elegant. . . . It's the opera book that tells you what you really want to know, not by gossiping, but by sensitive discussion of facts long-hidden behing [the Met's] Kremlin-like fa

Excerpt from Book

Chapter One The Boxholders Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt was furious, and that was how the Metropolitan Opera began. In the late 1870s, she had applied for a box at the Academy of Music, then New York''s premier opera presenter and social venue, and she had been turned down by the directors of the Academy. Mrs. Vanderbilt, whose fortune was estimated at $200 million, regarded this decision as completely unacceptable. To have a box at the Academy--and there were only eighteen--was to attain the highest rung on the city''s social ladder. As Edith Wharton wrote, "The world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out ''the new people.'' " But society in New York was, as it always is, in transition. The city''s wealth and power had increased vastly in the second half of the nineteenth century, and this had catapulted families such as the Vanderbilts, Astors, Morgans, Roosevelts, Goelets, Iselins, and Goulds to vast fortunes. The men who amassed these fortunes acquired an equally vast desire for social standing. Certainly, with only eighteen boxes at the Academy, this ultimate symbol of social triumph was tantalizingly out of reach. There was no room--or no box--for the newly wealthy. The new elite believed that there was no obstacle that could not be surmounted by money. If the directors of the Academy refused them entry, they would solve that problem by building their own opera house. This new house would be designed with a virgin set of boxes, available to those who had been snubbed by the Academy of Music. In 1880, $600,000 was raised from a group of subscribers, each of whom would own their own box, and a site was purchased at Thirty-ninth Street and Broadway. And so the Metropolitan Opera was founded--essentially tiers of boxes with an opera house built to surround them. On October 22, 1883, the new theater was inaugurated with Gounod''s Faust . The basic administrative organization of the new opera house was simple, and lasted for a quarter-century. The boxholders, who became known in 1893 as the Metropolitan Opera Real Estate Company, were cooperative owners of the opera house. They hired an impresario to produce what went onstage. This division between the Real Estate Company and the actual opera presenters would create serious problems in the future, but for the first few years, progress was smooth. Henry E. Abbey, the first impresario, received his instructions from the boxholder-stockholders. He was bidden "to provide first-class opera," or at least opera that was so defined by the boxholders. Abbey put together a fourteen-week season of nineteen operas, all in Italian. When, at the end of the first season, he had lost $300,000, he was dismissed. The boxholders were not interested in losing money. The boxholders next turned to Leopold Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra, and a close friend of Wagner and Liszt, and engaged him as both impresario and music director. Damrosch brought in an experienced company of singers from Central Europe to produce German opera. The directors were impressed by the small budget he presented--German singers were considerably less expensive than Italians. So for the second Metropolitan Opera season, all operas were sung in German, including works from the Italian and French repertories. This new programming brought in a new audience of German opera lovers to the Metropolitan; many of these were members of New York''s large immigrant population who thronged to the less-expensive seats. They went to the Met because they loved the music. The boxholders, in marked contrast, went to be seen by the other boxholders. The first German season was a success, but it took a grievous toll on Leopold Damrosch--he conducted every performance from opening night until he collapsed from overwork in February 1885, caught pneumonia, and swiftly died. He was immediately replaced by his son, Walter, and the season ended with only a small deficit. Despite the death of their music director, the boxholders were content. For the next seven seasons, the Metropolitan was primarily a German house. By 1890, all ten widely performed Wagner works, from Rienzi to Gatterd

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