num_pages: 393
description: Behind the gold curtains of the Metropolitan Opera House amidst the elaborate sets bejeweled costumes and labyrinth of administrative offices the Met has traditionally operated in great secrecy. Until now.Johanna Fiedler who was the Mets general press representative for fifteen years draws upon her insiders knowledge and rivetingly reveals for the first time the companys Byzantine inner workings and the personal social economic and artistic struggles that have always characterized the Met.Molto Agitato is a tale with an appropriately operatic cast of charactershaughty blue bloods ambitious social climbers determined administrators stubborn board members temperamental artistsall maneuvering to use their power and influence to make the Met conform to their own agendas. Fiedler brings to life the early days of the Met with the imperious Toscanini arriving from Italy and Caruso filling the house; the post-WW II years when the unions gained strength and plagued the company with strikes; and the ever present passions of tenors and sopranos clashing offstage as well as on. But most revelatory are Fiedlers portrayals of James Levine and Joseph Volpe and their practically parallel ascendanciesLevine rising from prodigy to artistic director Volpe advancing from stagehand to general managerand their once strained relationship that was compounded by Volpes much publicized firing of the soprano Kathleen Battle.With its swift-flowing narrative Molto Agitato is a wonderfully entertaining and thoroughly engaging account not only of one of the worlds most respected and richest music institutions but also of power politics ambition and egos.From the Hardcover edition.
language: English
title: Molto Agitato: The Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera
publisher: Doubleday