Tonight—Monday, January 8—at 10 p.m. 98.7 WFMT Radio’s Critical Thinking with Andrew Patner will present the first of two programs with University of Chicago musicologist Philip Gossett discussing his new book Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, illustrating his points on bel canto opera performance with musical extracts. The second program will air Monday, January 15, at 10 p.m.
Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett’s personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world’s leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colorfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our most favorite operas.
Read an excerpt.