About the Book
My first book, A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera, was published in 2018 and included on the Christian Science Monitor’s “Ten Best Books of September” list that year. It was named one of the New Yorker’s “Best Books We Read in 2021.”
It was a real joy to write A Mad Love – a chance to share my passion for the most visceral, crazy, and emotional of art forms! Opera can be daunting and complex for newcomers, so I have endeavored to explain how music, poetry and theater fit together, to explore the genre’s most important composers and works, and to introduce some of its most influential performers. Along the way I highlight some of the opera world’s fascinating historical figures, recurring debates, and trends.
Opera is evolving and frequently surprising, and I explore the genre as the living, thriving art form it is. I discuss the operas of some dozen living composers and explore the myriad ways (from traditional to wacky) that contemporary directors stage opera. I have created a Spotify playlist to accompany the book, which begins with music composed by Monteverdi in 1607 and ends with operas written some four hundred years later. There’s no quicker way to fall in love with opera than to listen to wonderful singers perform this gorgeous music.
“Vivien Schweitzer is also under opera’s spell, and in her delicious history, “Mad Love: an Introduction to Opera,” she regales us with all you need to know.”
—The New York Times, November 28th, 2018
“Schweitzer does a good job of explaining how the music itself works -comparisons to contemporary popular music are deftly handled and often surprisingly illuminating.”
—BBC Music Magazine, November 1, 2018
“What emerges clearly is Schweitzer’s profound passion for opera, her determination to explain the elements of the art so that others might embrace it… Affection is the subterranean river that frequently bursts through the surface to splash readers and, perhaps, convince them to put down the money for tickets.”
—Kirkus Review, June 18th, 2018.
