Here are 69 books that Maria Malibran fans have personally recommended if you like
Maria Malibran.
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I fell in love with opera history as an undergraduate exchange student in Vienna and went on to pursue my passion in graduate school. Rather than writing about opera composers and their music, I chose the unusual path of studying famous singers from the nineteenth century, especially the prima donnas who exerted extraordinary authority over composers, theater directors, and spectators. In my books and articles, I focus on the power of divas to thrill audiences and to shape the musical culture of which they are an integral part. The books I am recommending explore the lives and careers of some of the most fascinating prima donnas of the nineteenth century.
First published in 1864, Queens of Song is one of the earliest group biographies of famous divas of the operatic stage. Beginning with chapters on prima donnas who lived during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Creathorne Clayton moves quickly to the nineteenth century, focusing on powerful divas like Giuditta Pasta, Henrietta Sontag, and Giulia Grisi. Renowned for their talents and beloved by audiences worldwide, these divas often wielded outsized influence on the composers who wrote music for them and the impresarios who hired them. The individual chapters are short, but they are each surprisingly comprehensive, providing a full and vivid picture of the lives and accomplishments of these memorable, and often very demanding, artists.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and…
I fell in love with opera history as an undergraduate exchange student in Vienna and went on to pursue my passion in graduate school. Rather than writing about opera composers and their music, I chose the unusual path of studying famous singers from the nineteenth century, especially the prima donnas who exerted extraordinary authority over composers, theater directors, and spectators. In my books and articles, I focus on the power of divas to thrill audiences and to shape the musical culture of which they are an integral part. The books I am recommending explore the lives and careers of some of the most fascinating prima donnas of the nineteenth century.
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) was one of the most celebrated prima donnas of the nineteenth century, but she was much more than a typical diva. She was also one of the most versatile artists of the era, a talented composer, arranger, teacher, autograph collector, entrepreneur, salonnière, and promoter of early music. While fictionalized, this novel sticks closely to historical events of her life, focusing on her marriage to Louis Viardot, her long-lasting affair with Russian author Ivan Turgenev, and the unconventional and loving bonds that formed between these three extraordinary artists. If you’re looking for historical fiction about one of the most fascinating divas of the nineteenth century, An Unofficial Marriage is a great choice.
For Fans of Alexander Chee's best-selling novel, The Queen of the Night and opera fans everywhere.
Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous events of 19th century Europe, An Unofficial Marriage dramatizes the equally tumultuous real-life love affair of two great artists—the famous Russian author, Ivan Turgenev, and the celebrated French opera singer, Pauline Viardot. From the moment he encounters her on the St. Petersburg stage, Ivan falls completely for Pauline. Though Pauline returns his feelings, she is bound by her singular passion for her art and her devotion to her gentle, older husband, Louis. Nevertheless, Ivan pursues Pauline across…
I fell in love with opera history as an undergraduate exchange student in Vienna and went on to pursue my passion in graduate school. Rather than writing about opera composers and their music, I chose the unusual path of studying famous singers from the nineteenth century, especially the prima donnas who exerted extraordinary authority over composers, theater directors, and spectators. In my books and articles, I focus on the power of divas to thrill audiences and to shape the musical culture of which they are an integral part. The books I am recommending explore the lives and careers of some of the most fascinating prima donnas of the nineteenth century.
Through a dazzling collection of sources that include letters, contracts, memoirs, biographies, newspaper reviews, and fictional stories about the figure of the cantatrice, Kimberly White’s French Singers on the French Stage is a brilliant account of the various stages of singers’ lives in nineteenth-century France, beginning with their births and following them up to and past their retirements. In between, she describes their training at the Paris Conservatoire, debuts, marriages, benefits, and scores of other important issues that they grappled with throughout their careers. I do not know of any other work in the field of prima donna or opera studies that is at once as thorough and as lucidly written—it is a page-turner from beginning to end.
The study of singers' art has emerged as a prominent area of inquiry within musicology in recent years. Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830-1848 shifts the focus from the artwork onstage to the labour that went on behind the scenes. Through extensive analysis of primary source documents, Kimberly White explores the profession of singing, operatic culture, and the representation of female performers on the French stage between 1830 and 1848, and reveals new perspectives on the social, economic, and cultural status of these women. The book attempts to reconstruct and clarify contemporary practices of the singer at work, including…
I learned to read music at about the same time I learned to read words. I grew up taking piano lessons, studying almost entirely classical pieces that came weighted with history: everything I ever played had been played better by someone else. I still enjoyed my attempts, but realized that the relationship I had with those notes was not the one I wanted to have with words, which I felt drawn to assemble into my own arrangements, my own stories. So, as a weirdo who’s been thinking about interpretation and creation since childhood, I love books that delve into the challenges and emotional complexities of making music.
To portray the title character in Bizet’s Carmenis only one of the many transformations American orphan Lilliet Berne’s life requires, both on and offstage, as she ascends to opera stardom in late 19th century Paris. In this immersive novel, the clothes are as richly described as the music, and the music is described with not only sincere emotion but attention to realities and absurdities: Bizet’s early death leads to greatly improved ticket sales, for example. In Chee’s haunting first novel Edinburgh, he made choral music shimmer with both beauty and horror.The Queen of the Night is very different in setting, time, and sweeping sense of adventure, but shares Chee’s ability to movingly explore acts of survival and reinvention.
'One doesn't so much read it, as one is bewitched by it. Epic, gorgeous, haunting' HANYA YANAGIHARA, author of A Little Life
When it begins, it begins as an opera should begin: in a palace, at a ball, in an encounter with a stranger, who you discover has your fate in his hands . . .
She is Lilliet Berne. And she is the soprano.
1882. One warm autumn evening in Paris, Lilliet is finally offered an original role, though it comes at a price. The part is based on her deepest secret.…
Though I live in the foothills of the Ozarks, I’m an Anglophile at heart, loving all things Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. I spent much of my angsty adolescence tucked away in Regency and Victorian England with my nose stuck in a book. As a result, I now jump at every chance I get to skip across the pond and roam the English countryside, listening hard to hear all the voices from the past—which is why my stories are always tied to British history. So whether you love ballrooms or shadowy tales set in gothic manors, here’s a great list for you.
Sometimes you need a good read to curl up with on a rainy day, one that’s a bit melancholic yet romantic at the same time. I know I do, and The Lost Melody checked both those boxes. My heart ached for heroine Vivienne Mourdant, for have we not all struggled with reality now and then? And who wouldn’t if trapped within an insane asylum? This one kept me guessing until the very end as to how poor Vivienne would ever escape in one piece.
"Darkly premised and brilliantly presented. The Lost Melody serves a pitch-perfect blend of history, romance, mystery, and faith."--Booklist starred review
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When concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant's father dies, he leaves to her the care of an adult ward she knew nothing about. The woman is supposedly a patient at Hurstwell Asylum. The woman's portrait is shockingly familiar to Vivienne, so when the asylum claims she was never a patient there, Vivienne is compelled to discover what happened to the figure she remembers from childhood dreams.
The longer she lingers in the deep shadows and forgotten towers at Hurstwell, the fuzzier…
Growing up in an intellectual household with a New Yorker subscription, I became a fan of the short story early on, with J.D. Salinger, Ann Beattie, and Raymond Carver forming a baseline of personal taste and inspiration. I especially love stories that resonate with my own sense of yearning for life and love—and the deep losses that inevitably come our way. Decades of reading would pass before I began writing stories myself, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to recommend these moving and beautifully written collections.
I absolutely loved King’s novel Writers & Lovers, and her story collection did not disappoint! Here, too, are the struggles of writers—to find the right words and something meaningful from loss.
There’s nothing typical in King’s diverse array of characters, and her intimate portrayal of their desires—their strengths and failings, their glimmers of hope as they brave new starts—drew me in and kept me turning the pages.
"Five Tuesdays in Winter moved me, inspired me, thrilled me. It filled up every chamber of my heart. I loved this book." —Ann Patchett
By the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers and Euphoria comes a masterful new collection of short stories
Lily King, one of the most "brilliant" (New York Times Book Review), "wildly talented" (Chicago Tribune), and treasured authors of contemporary fiction, returns after her recent bestselling novels with Five Tuesdays in Winter, her first book of short fiction.
Told in the intimate voices of complex, endearing characters, Five Tuesdays in Winter intriguingly subverts…
I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War ever since I was a kid, traipsing through battlefields and digging up old Minie balls and bullets from the backyard where my dad played when he was younger. The war was America’s defining moment, in many ways more important than the Revolution itself, setting the stage for our continuing evolution as a nation. But often, the history we’re taught is incomplete and imperfect. As a journalist who’s done some prize-winning investigative work, I like to use those skills to peel away the cobwebs of history to find the untold stories that are too often hidden from view.
This is not really a Civil War book, but a meditation on how history (including the Civil War and Reconstruction) impacts our culture today, penned by a journalist hiking the 200+ miles from Washington, D.C., to New York City.
Beautifully written, with a gentle conversational tone, I felt like I was hiking along with him as he talked about the scenery, history, philosophy, and his own impending sense of mortality (the hike was during a respite from a long-running bout with cancer). One of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
“American Ramble is a dazzling mixture of travelogue, memoir, and history. At times profound, funny, and heartbreaking, this is the story of a traveler intoxicated by life. I couldn’t put it down.” — Nathaniel Philbrick
A stunning, revelatory memoir about a 330-mile walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City—an unforgettable pilgrimage to the heart of America across some of our oldest common ground.
Neil King Jr.’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. By the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency.…
As an economics professor, I’ve spent the past twenty years researching why cities build upward. Though I mostly look at cities through the lens of statistics and data, every building has a personal and dramatic story that exists behind the numbers. And no matter where you go in the world, great cities with their towering skyscrapers all owe a debt to New York—every city wants its own version of the Empire State Building to signal its economic might. New York is the world’s metropolis. As the (now cliché) song line goes, “If I can make there, I’ll make it anywhere,” is a true today as a century ago.
When I walk through the streets of Manhattan, I’m constantly awed by the variety and density of its buildings. I wonder how such a city could have ever been built. New cities today lack the soul and character. But when you look at why these buildings exist, you see that they are there for a more mundane purpose: as shelter. The Garment District, for example, was created to house massive sweatshops to clothe America. Gotham’s apartment towers enclose the beds on which residents sleep.
Many of these structures were built by a group of family-run development companies. The founders of these enterprises invariably began as immigrants trying to hustle their way up the economic ladder. They started as teenagers working in the sweatshops or hawking newspapers and, bit by bit, erected their own real estate empires. Tom Schactman’s book tells how entrepreneurial spirit, along with New York’s rapid economic growth,…
A portrait of Manhattan real estate and of the multimillionaires who are its masters, describing a world of high risks and huge rewards. Skyscrapers embody the romance of our times. The inspired gamblers who built the structures that transformed not only Manhattan but also the world took great risks. Some of the most colourful failed, while others founded family dynasties among the wealthiest in America, from the Astors and Rockefellers to the Roses and Trumps. From penniless Russian Jewish immigrants to society patricians, from penthouses to tenements, real estate and its manipulations - the buildings, the strategies, even the disasters…
I am a former wildland firefighter, so I am passionate about writing about it. I’ve included several personal experiences in my books, and I learned integrity and an outstanding work ethic with the firefighters who trained me in the wildland fire community. I met my husband on another fire crew, so I had to write these fire stories in the romance genre. I have friends who also met their spouses in the world of firefighting, and I loved their romances. While not all wildfire stories in real life may have happy endings, I choose to write these as romances because a happily-ever-after is required for the romance genre.
This author is a former NYC firefighter and a terrific writer. This book is well written, with plenty of action in the firefighting world in New York City and plenty of heat for the slow-burn romance.
The heartfelt emotion this author writes is so realistic that she had me laughing and crying along with her characters. Now and then, I like to read a steamy romance, and this one more than delivers on that score. I’ll read anything this author writes.
He's reckless. She's hiding behind a lie. They seem destined to be, but could easily crash and burn.
As one of New York's Bravest, Dylan Hogan is notorious for his recklessness, but ask him to put his heart on the line and he couldn't be more cautious. After narrowly escaping death, he meets Autumn outside her burning apartment and instantly feels a connection that intrigues and terrifies him. He feels alive for the first time in over a decade, but she seems as adamant about pushing him away as she is about holding him close.
I love mysteries, especially series with a female sleuth. I discovered Miss Marple when I was a midwifery student and was instantly hooked. Over the years, I have sought out mysteries with women Sherlocks and am always thrilled to find a series. I was so enchanted that I wanted to add to the genre and now write the Modern Midwife Mysteries featuring Maeve O’Reilly Kensington, a modern nurse midwife. Try any of the books I’ve recommended. You’re in for a treat!
I love a New England mystery, especially one that includes recipes.
Katherine Hall Page fills the bill with her twenty-six delightful Faith Fairchild mysteries. Faith is a high-end New York City caterer who falls in love and marries a minister from a New England village. Will she be bored? Can love conquer all?
It turns out that this sleepy New England town has murders aplenty, but luckily, Faith is on the scene. I have tried her recipes, and they are wonderful!
The Body in the Belfry, the first volume in Katherine Hall Page's cozy mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Faith Fairchild
During her years spent in New York City, Faith Fairchild was convinced she had seen pretty much everything. But the transplanted caterer/minister's wife was unprepared for the surprises awaiting her in the sleepy Massachusetts village of Aleford. And she is especially taken aback by the dead body of a pretty young thing she discovers stashed in the church's belfry. The victim, Cindy Shepherd, was well-known locally for her acid tongue and her jilted beaux, which created a lot of bad…
