The Mapleson Memoirs, 1848-1888, Vol II

The second volume of James Henry Mapleson's indispensable memoir opens in the immediate aftermath of professional ruin. Cast out from the Royal Italian Opera Company, stripped of his contracts with the legendary Adelina Patti and his roster of star singers, Mapleson faces the greatest challenge of his career. What follows is a master class in Victorian realpolitik: the recruitment of new talent, the cultivation of American audiences, and the relentless warfare against rival opera houses desperate to destroy him. This is memoir as blood sport. Mapleson writes with the blunt authority of a man who has survived every conceivable betrayal in an industry built on vanity, greed, and artistry in equal measure. The prima donnas sulk, the box office fluctuates with their moods, and fortunes rise and fall on the quality of a single performance. Here is the operatic world stripped of its glamour, revealed as a ruthless business where survival demands cunning as much as taste.