Bel Canto Bully: The Life of the Legendary Opera Impresario Domenico Barbaja
'a delightful read, and it should appeal to opera lovers as well as anybody who has an interest in 18th-century entrepreneurship.' '...a heck of a good read' -- Charlotte Rea '...a fine piece of work; informative, entertaining, written in a hugely accessible style. I particularly liked the detail [he goes] into of the politics of the Kingdom of Naples and how San Carlo and Barbaja rolled with the punches.' -- Sir David McVicar 'Eisenbeiss seems to have read widely in several languages, and is as likely to devote a paragraph to the political ambitions of the Carbonari, the latest forms of gas lighting or the details of a theatrical contract as to the artistic quality or nature of a particular opera or performer ... [he] deserves credit...' '...a highly readable, even entertaining historical work about music and culture in Italy during the 1800s. Author Eisenbeiss, heart in hand, displays admirable research and analytic skills as he makes sense of an almost-unheard-of opera impresario, Domenico Barbaja.'