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Title: The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire by Wayne Koestenbaum, Tony Kushner ISBN: 0306810085 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8
Rating: 4
Summary: Gorgeous but specialized
Comment: Here we have Wayne Koestenbaum, the glorious diva and author of the equally hysterical and painstaking "Jackie Under my Skin", and he's come up with another gem.
This celebratory (and at times overtly scholarly) tome is an homage to the opera diva, the fabulous queen of opening night, the ageing homosexual who argues Joan Sutherland until 4 a.m. over pink champagne, the devotee, the La Scala denizen, the man most at home in the dark with his Prima Donna.
I would suggest that unless one is quite giddy about opera, this book should be avoided. However, if you are someone who can cognitively argue the merits of the 1952 Callas recording of Tosca on EMI on vinyl versus CD, this book may be your new Bible.
Do yourself a favour and read a few off the Stately Homos of England too. I would suggest "The Naked Civil Servant" by Quentin Crisp and perhaps "The Swimming Pool Library" by Al Hollinghurst as complimentary texts to this darling little book...one that would make Dame Edna swoon. Happy Hunting.
Rating: 2
Summary: Tediously whimsical
Comment: There's no denying that Wayne Koestenbaum is a very smart man, but that still doesn't make THE QUEEN'S THROAT very worthwhile. The narratorial persona he adopts (which he's stuck to ever since the book was published ten years ago) is of a slight hysterical, over-the-top aesthete who takes to impossibly grandiose and silly declamations (such as when he pretends to dream he is Thaïs: "Wayne, Thaïs must have pearls!"). The book really belongs to that peculiar moment in academia when writers could claim whatever trivial thing they did in daily life was politically important, with regard to identity politics, simply because they claimed it to be "subversive"; if you give even two seconds worth of thought to the strictures and actual repressive measures gay men and women must face on a daily basis all over the world, you'll see how trivial Koestenbaum's claims that his trivialities are politically important really are.
There is some fun to be had in the reading of this work, but the narrator's giddy narcissism does get very wearisome after a while. This new edition comes with a new and especially pompous preface from Tony Kushner.
Rating: 4
Summary: Queenly Insights
Comment: The author is sometimes outrageous yet outspoken in some of his assumptions and observations about those who attend and enjoy opera and those singers and other musicians who perform these works. Some may disagree vehemently with some or all of his consclusions, but no one who reads this book will be without an opinion - either agreeing wholeheartedly with the author or having a "hissy fit" over his "over-the-top" arguments and perceptions. It is amusingly illustrated with occasionally very droll captions to go with the archival photos. On the whole, this book is a pleasant diversion for before-bed reading and may keep you from falling asleep with some of the author's "apercus" in mind
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Title: Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics by Wayne Koestenbaum ISBN: 0345434609 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 29 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Opera: The Extravagant Art by Herbert Lindenberger ISBN: 0801416981 Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 1984 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship by Ruth A. Solie ISBN: 0520201469 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality by Susan McClary ISBN: 0816641897 Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis ISBN: 0679771263 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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