Split personality. Liking the arts, especially opera, and hockey and Los Toros. I know, I know THAT one is non pc currently. But I can't help it saw some in Spain and got hooked, but good.
But on the other hand right now opera and hockey are in the forefront!
Yes, it is the new book by Pamela Cramer: Murder at the Frankfurt Opera.
Written in a crisply simple way (a bit Hemingway-esque methinks) it's a quick, interesting read. Written with a sense of humor which will make you chuckle.
Sprinkled among the pages are photos of the author in her various operatic roles, alongside some pen and ink drawings by Angela Cramer, the younger daughter.
A pointed lead-in says a lot about what opera can, and will do, by no other than the GM of the Frankfurt Opera.
The reader learn all about what's going on behind the curtain.
How singers sing, or not.
How voices develop, and are classified.
How one gets a job in Germany.
How unions order what and when things happen.
How one eats, sleeps and shops over the big pond.
How costumes and made, conductor conduct and sets work.
It is a veritable "How to book" about opera.
With details, that may surprise event the most fervent opera fan.
How mishaps happen.
And how a seeming mishap turns to murder.
More I shall not disclose-go ahead and read it!
The author of "A Death in Vienna", about which I posted some time ago.
And the titles are:
Each one reaffirms this reader's fascination with the subject(s) and the literary prowess of the author.
Cafe Museum
He places all his novels (read thus far) in Fin de Siecle Vienna depicting her music, culture and atmosphere in great depth. Such as the Cafe society in Old Vienna!
He mixes police procedural, suitable to the times when crime lab procedure was in its infancy, if existing at all, with the then current chaotic politics of early 20th-century Austria.
Then tosses in a quite a bit of psychoanalysis based on the then new discoveries by
Siegmund Freud , Krafft-Ebbing and others, bringing the readers rather deep insights into the workings of the mind.
And finally, adds soupcons about literature, such as Arthur Schnitzlerand poetry.
About 'house'music when people got together to sing Schubert Lieder and play chamber music.
Schubert Grave
Here Schubert's "Der Doppelgaenger"
Interestingly one of the subjects in Tallis' Books
About women's lib's first toddling steps in the Vienna of late 1800's which actually antedate the rise of sufragettes in the UK.
Klimt and his mistress Flogge (wearing her REFORM Dress)
Viennese women started to protest against the restrictive fashions of tightly laced corsets and began to wear "reform or Freedom" Dresses as designed by Klimt and his mistress Flogge.
He does not shy away from controversial subjects such as antisemitism, religious fanaticism, venereal disease, prostitution, and, being crime fiction, murder and mayhem.
In Vienna, affairs of the heart(every man is entitled to his mistress) are openly (more or less) carried on.
The Viennese' preoccupationwith"A schaine Laich" -'pretty death'('pomp and circumstances'as applied to burials) are both subjects he deals with frankly, incorporating them into his fiction in one form or another.
As far as I am concerned, these novels are interesting and never boring to read. Equally interesting to crime fiction buffs as to history buffs. And by history I refer to actual political events in Vienna in those times, as well as medical history.
Gustav Klimt-Hygeia-part of a mural at Med. Faculty Vienna
an perfect example of the marriage between art/culture/medicine in 'Old Vienna' at right......................
University of Vienna and Allgemeines Krakenhaus (Hosp. originally est.1693 as Soldier's Hospital by Emperor Leopold 1.
After all, those were the days when progressive and innovative developments at the University of Vienna (established 1365) formed the basis for much of modern medicine...
Narrenturm- formerly Psych. Ward in the OLD Hospital
Blood groups discovered, for instance and, of course, the basis of psychology and psychoanalysis.
Here is list for anyone interested (not complete, I think)
of Tallis' output - in both the mystery and non-fiction genre:
The Liebermann Papers:
A Death in Vienna (2006) (Originally published as Mortal Mischief in Uk 2005)
, Krafft-Ebbing and others, bringing the readers rather deep insights into the workings of the mind.
