Spending some time on the beach this summer? Need options for in-flight entertainment? Austin Opera has you covered! Here are some reading selections to get you prepared for the 2019-2020 Season:
Rigoletto
Pick up a copy of Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo and you will be reading the inspiration for Verdi’s Rigoletto.
Want to learn about Giuseppe Verdi–look no further than William Berger’s Verdi with a Vengeance. Berger, the voice of the Metropolitan Opera’s weekly Saturday radio broadcast, twists Verdi’s life and his musical outputs into a compelling narrative.
Everest
The upcoming production of Everest (January 2020), tells the tale of one of the deadliest years in recorded history, 1996, at Mount Everest. The following are three accounts from that fateful time.
- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (the inspiration for the opera)
- The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev
- After the Wind: 1996 Everest Tragedy – One Survivor’s Story by Lou Kasischke
Opera ATX: Winterreise
The second Opera ATX show is a staged production of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. This song cycle is based on 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. To learn more about Schubert, check out The Life of Schubert by Christopher H. Gibbs from Cambridge University Press.
Turandot
While Puccini’s opera is most nearly based on the text Turandot by Count Carlo Gozzi, the original story is based on one of the seven stories in the epic Haft Paykar, a work of 12th-century Persian poet Nizami.
Read all about Puccini’s life and prodigious career in music in the unconventional biography, Puccini Without Excuses also by William Berger.
BookPeople 
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