Review for Bravura
Lisa Kirazian
Reviewed by Patricia
A. Guthrie
“You are the music
while the music lasts.”
T.S. Eliot
Taken from Part Six
of Bravura
The decade is the 60’s into the 70’s. The years of Kennedy
and Nixon, Viet Nam and The Beatles. The Metropolitan Opera has just moved into
Lincoln Center, Van Claiburn has exploded onto the classical music scene and
Grace Bumbry, Maria Callas, Renata Tabaldi are gracing the operatic stages.
Rudolph Bing is the Director of the Metropolitan Opera House. Life is a struggle for young musicians as it
is and has been for all ages.
Brother and sister, Kate and Neil Driscoll, a violinist and pianist, have joined
the throngs of students at the Royal Academy in London and meet up with
lifetime friends and colleagues, Anne, Colin, Jeremy and Maggie who will take
this epic journey with them. This is the story of their lives from conservatory
students to accomplished musicians, their day-to-day struggles to reach the top
of the music world and how that intermingles with love, loss, disgrace and
redemption.
A beautifully woven tale takes you into the inner sanctum of
the music world. For the musician it is sublime. Ms Kazian strokes her words
like a conductor might pen a manuscript with highs lows, crescendos and
decrescendos. In describing her opera singer she writes the arias in the
original language then gives us the translations so we can comprehend her
emotions, personally and professionally while singing to ever more glowing
audiences.
The book contains the joys and sorrows of each character so
you might want to keep a box of tissues nearby.
Well done. It will be interesting to see what she does with
the next two books of her three part series.
Comments are welcome.
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