The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera

Bubbling at the core of every song, every book and every poem exists the magnificent and ethereal jewel that humans have grown accustomed to describing as art. But what is "art"? Why does "art" affect us? How can one begin to describe the concept of "art," when "art," itself, is impossible to describe with rational logic and intellectual reasoning? The answer to the last of these questions resides within the question itself: it is impossible. But rarely is this "impossibility" better illuminated than in Matthew Aucoin's deeply insightful and delightfully entertaining work, The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera.

Aucoin, a conductor, composer, pianist, MacArthur Fellow and writer of this impressive collection of informative musings on opera's past, present and future, weaves a powerful love story between art and opera: the former, a concept whose depths will never be fully probed, and the latter, a medium that is all too often misjudged as something snobby, unobtainable and belonging to the distant past. Dancing between topics such as the historical and artistic importance of Orpheus and Eurydice, the working relationships between Stravinsky and various librettists, and the operatic ramifications of Walt Whitman's poetry, The Impossible Art serves as a valuable guide to those who seek a more intimate relationship with art, with opera and with the mysteries of the human soul that reside within the realm of artistic creation--no matter how impossible that realm may be to approach. --Eamon Stein, reader, writer and filmmaker in Seattle, Wash.

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