Matthew Aucoin

I borrowed and read this book after reading a largely favourable review by the experience opera critic Wynne Delacomba in the American Scholar in December 2021. The review pointed out that the book was highly personal. Matthew Aucoin, the author of the book is the composer of the modern opera Eurydice, which premiered in Los Angeles in February 2020 and was scheduled for the Metropolitan Opera in New York in late 2020. Met debut was postponed to November 2021. The book was written and published during the hiatus. Aucoin is a young composer, and an advocate of "modern" opera and modern music. Parts of the book tell the stories of operas based on the myth of Orpheus in the underworld. Others dip into Verdi's adaptations of Shakespeare's plays (Macbeth, Othelo, Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff). Parts tell stories about 20th century operas (Auden and Stravinsky's collaboration on the Rake's Progress Birtwhistle's The Mask of Orpheus). Parts of the book tell stories about Aucoin's study of Walt Whitman and Aucoin's opera Crossing. Parts of the book are about the composition and the staging (in LA) of Aucoin's Eurydice. The closing chapter, explaining the merits of Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro is excellent. The publisher tried to sell the book as explaining opera as fusing theater, classical music and dance. The book is too short and personal to explain opera, but is enlightening. Making modern opera and modern music accessible is a challenge.… (mere)