Italics are mine

Review of "Working" by Robert Caro

 I really wanted to like this book. I really, really wanted to like this book. I have read or listened to the audiobooks of all 4 volumes of his LBJ biography (while impatiently waiting for the 5th and last installment), and I have The Power Broker about Robert Moses on my shelves. Caro has a very distinctive writing voice, only enhanced by the narration of Grover Gardner. He has been able to unearth key details about his subjects - for instance, before he came along, biographies of LBJ all portrayed the young Lyndon as well-liked among his peers, and it took Caro's digging to realize this was only a legend fostered by LBJ and his allies. When The New Yorker published excerpts of his essays on writing, I was thrilled to realize Caro's writing voice shone through there as well and I pre-ordered Working with great hopes of learning more about Caro's working process. I did learn that he put an unusual emphasis in imagining each scene from his character's viewpoint, asking key witnesses again and again what they saw and heard until they got angry with him, but overall the best parts of Working were all published in The New Yorker, and there wasn't much new material that I felt warranted the publication of this book. Caro does say that he is also at work on an autobiography, and that will certainly make for a great book. I don't think that it was essential to publish Working, but at least Caro will get the royalties instead of having the money accumulate posthumously when some other editor would have put together some of his writing. Get The New Yorker issue that published the book excerpts, even at the $8.99 cover price, you won't miss much from the parts of the book that aren't in it. But I'm still very much looking forward to the 5th volume of the LBJ biography and Caro's own autobiography. 

Review of "Max Lorenz: Wagner's Mastersinger and Hitler's Siegfried"

I recently came across this 54-min documentary about the life of German tenor Max Lorenz (1901-1975), who was recognized as one of the best heldentenors of his generation. The DVD is out of print but I was able to fetch a used copy in excellent condition on Amazon at a great price (the last reasonably-priced copy, in fact). The movie is also accompanied of a 74-minute CD of musical excerpts of Lorenz singing Siegfried. The movie soundtrack, of course, is full of Lorenz's performances too. I've known about Lorenz ever since I started researching that novel I'm finishing about a French opera singer during World War II, loosely inspired by the life of French soprano Germaine Lubin, who sang Isolde at Bayreuth in 1939 opposite, you guessed it, Max Lorenz. Yet, I didn't expect to find a documentary about him.

For those of you who have stumbled upon this blog post at random, it helps to know that Bayreuth in those days was a Hitler stronghold. The festival boss, Winifred Wagner, Richard's daughter-in-law, and Adolf Hitler himself were close friends, linked by their love of opera. I didn't know that Lorenz had much of a story worth telling, but in fact he had, as a homosexual with a Jewish wife whom he fiercely protected. The documentary contains several movie-worthy moments such as the time where Winifred Wagner was ordered not to employ Lorenz again because he had been caught in a compromising situation with a young man, situation that ultimately led to a lawsuit, but Winifred Wagner refused to let him go, and the time where Nazis came to arrest her and her mother while Lorenz, who had been assured they'd be protected, was not at home, and Lorenz's wife dialed a special number the wife of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels had given her in case of emergencies, and after ten minutes the soldiers were ordered out of the house. 

The documentary also has breathtaking pictures of the Semperoper in Dresden and the Vienna State Opera, where Lorenz made his debut (followed by appearances at the Metropolitan Opera), and of the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. The end of Lorenz's life made me a bit sad. He knew he had scaled great heights he could never reach again and after his wife's passing he seemed very lonely. But he left such a mark on the opera world that he is still remembered today, and he also came across as a man of integrity who dared be himself at a time where that was far from accepted and did his utmost to protect the people dear to him when they were in danger. After the war Lorenz became an Austrian citizen, died in Salzburg and is interred in Vienna.