Chicago Lyric Opera recently announced its next season, and while only subscriptions are currently on sale (tickets for individual performances become available in July), this is a good time to look at recent novels that involve operas and those who sing them.
The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee is as full of drama and incident as any opera. The book opens with Lilliet Berne, a famous soprano and friend of Verdi, being offered the highest honor a singer can achieve: a role written just for her. Problem is, this new opera exposes all her secrets. Who could have written it? And so begins a romp through the demi-monde of Europe, primarily Paris. Lilliet lives enough for several novels, as a courtesan, imperial maid, and equestrienne, all the while keeping alive the dream of being an opera star. This book is not a quick read, but you won't mind because of the lush description and engaging story, to say nothing of the intricate plot.
Piers Paul Reid also has a new book: Scarpia. If you are unfamiliar with Puccini's Tosca, you will love the drama of Rome in the turbulent time after the French Revolution. If you are familiar with the opera, you will also appreciate how Reid takes one of the more dastardly villains in the canon and makes him a tragic hero. Tosca herself is not neglected in this juicy novel, which gallops along the Italian peninsula from Sicily to Venice. More drama, more sensual description, and a dark and brooding protagonist make this another winner for opera fans.
For an experience of opera in a different culture, there's Lisa See's Peony in Love. Peony, educated and obedient in Qing China, is allowed to see a controversial opera as part of her sixteenth birthday celebration. Falling in love with a poet but promised to another, Peony finds out too late that they are one and the same. She haunts him as a ghost, possessing his wives to write commentary on the scandalous opera. This is an intimate view of feudal China, with the plot hinging in certain places on the observance of burial rites and afterlife mythology. This is a compelling, twisty-plotted novel, but what will keep you coming back are the complex characters and their romantic situation.
I have written about singers before in my review of Kelly Gardiner's Goddess. Julie de Maupin is determinedly unconventional in Louis XIV France and like Lilliet, becomes an opera singer. Unlike some of the other books on this list, the pages just fly by in this one.
Got more books about the opera? Let's hear about them in the comments!
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