Review for Vissi d'arte

For anyone who has enjoyed viewing opera, for anyone who has attempted the
discipline of the performing arts, Vissi d'arte starts out with the stepping
stones - the individuals who enroll in opera school, the lessons they must
learn, and the teacher who is an enigma. For anyone who likes a slow build to
passion, Vissi d'arte portrays a group of people who, in working together, find
themselves in turnabouts of attraction and discovery.

The characters
lead the reader on, Max the banker who has always desired to show off his voice
on stage, the young women vying for lead roles, some unsure and one insidious, a
director whose favorites wait on his choice, a journalist who uncovers the
intrigue behind the curtain, and an opera coach whose past is veiled after her
move to Australia.

It's entrancing to identify with a student in the
opera school. Their language lessons and their acting practice are carefully
depicted while the author shows how the intensity of this art and its student
circle can develop into destructive passion. The knives in rehearsal, the parts
that are assigned become prelude to a desperate singer's scheme to obtain a lead
singer's life. But the most operatic of all pasts is that of the teacher,
Harriet Shaw, not known to have sung since she left England.

Realistic
dialogue, details about the restaurants and leased houses the opera students
inhabit, their days off at the ocean are all redolent of the performing artist's
life. If a person wonders how much these lives have to do with the stage's
stories, Vissi d'arte portrays both the discipline and the off-hours release of
this demanding lifestyle.