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Opera Mystery #2
気ままなプリマドンナ
Prima Donna at Large
by Barbara Paul
Translated by Norie Nakagawa
In 1915, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York was a melting pot of excitement with operas such as Madame Butterfly being performed every night. However, behind the glamorous stage, the shadow of a vicious crime was creeping up. Ammonia had been mixed into a French baritone's throat spray! The Frenchman had lost his vocal cords and committed suicide in despair. Who could have done it? Gerardine Farrar, the prima donna of the century, set out to find out the truth herself. A gorgeous mystery highly praised by the New York Times.
NY Times Top 10 Spectacular Mysteries
Sankei Bunko (Foreign Novels Series)
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
気ままなプリマドンナ
バーバラ・ポール
中川法江訳
英語タイトル：「Prima Donna at Large」「プリマドンナ・アット・ラージ」
１９１５年、ニューヨークのメトロポリタン歌劇場は〈蝶々夫人〉はじめ、連夜上演されるオペラの数々に興奮の坩堝と化していた。しかし、その華やかな舞台の裏には、悪質な犯罪の影が忍びよっていた。フランス人バリトンの喉スプレーにアンモニアが混入されていたのだ！フランス人は声帯を奪われ、絶望のあまり自殺した。いったい誰が！？世紀のプリマドンナ、ジェラディン・ファーラーは自ら真相究明に乗り出した。ＮＹ・タイムズ絶賛の絢爛たるミステリー。
NYタイムズ選ベスト10 絢爛たるミステリー
サンケイ文庫 [海外ノベルス・シリーズ]
by Barbara Paul
Translated by Norie Nakagawa
In 1915, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York was a melting pot of excitement with operas such as Madame Butterfly being performed every night. However, behind the glamorous stage, the shadow of a vicious crime was creeping up. Ammonia had been mixed into a French baritone's throat spray! The Frenchman had lost his vocal cords and committed suicide in despair. Who could have done it? Gerardine Farrar, the prima donna of the century, set out to find out the truth herself. A gorgeous mystery highly praised by the New York Times.
NY Times Top 10 Spectacular Mysteries
Sankei Bunko (Foreign Novels Series)
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
気ままなプリマドンナ
バーバラ・ポール
中川法江訳
英語タイトル：「Prima Donna at Large」「プリマドンナ・アット・ラージ」
１９１５年、ニューヨークのメトロポリタン歌劇場は〈蝶々夫人〉はじめ、連夜上演されるオペラの数々に興奮の坩堝と化していた。しかし、その華やかな舞台の裏には、悪質な犯罪の影が忍びよっていた。フランス人バリトンの喉スプレーにアンモニアが混入されていたのだ！フランス人は声帯を奪われ、絶望のあまり自殺した。いったい誰が！？世紀のプリマドンナ、ジェラディン・ファーラーは自ら真相究明に乗り出した。ＮＹ・タイムズ絶賛の絢爛たるミステリー。
NYタイムズ選ベスト10 絢爛たるミステリー
サンケイ文庫 [海外ノベルス・シリーズ]
395 pages, Paperback Bunko
First published January 1, 1985
5 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Paul
99 books19 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Barbara Paul is an American writer of detective stories and science fiction. She was born in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1931 and was educated, inter alia, at Bowling Green State University and the University of Pittsburgh.
A number of her novels feature in-jokes: for example Full Frontal Murder borrows various names from the British TV series Blake's 7.
Barbara Paul is an American writer of detective stories and science fiction. She was born in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1931 and was educated, inter alia, at Bowling Green State University and the University of Pittsburgh.
A number of her novels feature in-jokes: for example Full Frontal Murder borrows various names from the British TV series Blake's 7.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 9, 2021
“But when they were all together, they made glorious music.”
These opera mysteries are very silly, but so full of love for the art of opera.
These opera mysteries are very silly, but so full of love for the art of opera.
August 12, 2021
Absolutely loved this walk in Opera’s past with a story set in the Metropolitan Opera House featuring Geraldine Farrah, Enrico Caruso and Toscanini as conductor. The mystery is incidental to the workings and rivalries in the opera world. Such a wonderful fictitious slice of the past and a joy for opera fans!
April 26, 2021
Barbara Paul is a genius
I originally read this years ago. And it continued to call to me. Well plotted, with engaging characters, but it also includes at least one scene that is so beyond laugh out loud funny that tears were running down my face. Glorious
I originally read this years ago. And it continued to call to me. Well plotted, with engaging characters, but it also includes at least one scene that is so beyond laugh out loud funny that tears were running down my face. Glorious
February 23, 2016
This was a credible mystery, and a reasonably challenging one. It was considerably shorter than some books I have read recently, but engaging nonetheless. It is an unusual murder mystery, because the victim is not directly killed by the murderer, but is instead injured in a way that induces him to commit suicide (completely destroying the voice of an opera star), which the police believe was at least the reasonably likely outcome and thus a good basis for a potential murder charge, once they determine who did it.
Its real appeal, though, lay in its setting and characters. Caruso, Farrar, Toscanini, and several others are genuine people who were involved in the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in the early twentieth century, and they are brought to life here so believably I kept wondering whether Barbara Paul somehow had known them, been part of the opera backstage world, or perhaps had an aunt who told tales about her time there. The viewpoint character in particular, operatic superstar soprano Geraldine Farrar, is simultaneously generously warm and caustically egotistical. She is nice to her fans because she recognizes their value. Her thoughts and sometimes her words to an overweight fellow soprano are terribly judgmental and yet in some ways quite consistent with her own character. At one point she even thinks about how she loves the current fashions because the slim sleeves and bodices make it impossible to hide the excess flab she does not have.
This apparently follows from a previous book in which Enrico Caruso played the detective roll; he apparently annoyed the police so much that this time the investigating officer threatens to jail him for interference if he so much as questions one of his friends--since the incident occurred at the opera house during a performance, and so many of his friends (and himself) are implicated. He chooses instead to attempt to do his detecting through Miss Farrar, aided by the fact that having been not merely implicated but targeted (the victim's last words were accusing her on stage before the audience) and so she is already attempting to uncover the real perpetrator before Caruso suggests it.
It good form, everyone has a strong motive to hate the victim, an annoyingly controlling performer who threatened several people's jobs and offended the rest, and almost everyone whom Farrar questions lies about something only to be discovered later. There is also a fair amount of light-hearted good fun, and a very credible look at the New York City of the day including its highest and lower places. It is not a dark tale despite the suicide/murder of the victim, and does a good job of misdirecting suspicion nearly to the reveal.
It has gone to my wife, who commented that it looked good, and I think it worth reading although not on a caliber with the great mystery writers.
Its real appeal, though, lay in its setting and characters. Caruso, Farrar, Toscanini, and several others are genuine people who were involved in the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in the early twentieth century, and they are brought to life here so believably I kept wondering whether Barbara Paul somehow had known them, been part of the opera backstage world, or perhaps had an aunt who told tales about her time there. The viewpoint character in particular, operatic superstar soprano Geraldine Farrar, is simultaneously generously warm and caustically egotistical. She is nice to her fans because she recognizes their value. Her thoughts and sometimes her words to an overweight fellow soprano are terribly judgmental and yet in some ways quite consistent with her own character. At one point she even thinks about how she loves the current fashions because the slim sleeves and bodices make it impossible to hide the excess flab she does not have.
This apparently follows from a previous book in which Enrico Caruso played the detective roll; he apparently annoyed the police so much that this time the investigating officer threatens to jail him for interference if he so much as questions one of his friends--since the incident occurred at the opera house during a performance, and so many of his friends (and himself) are implicated. He chooses instead to attempt to do his detecting through Miss Farrar, aided by the fact that having been not merely implicated but targeted (the victim's last words were accusing her on stage before the audience) and so she is already attempting to uncover the real perpetrator before Caruso suggests it.
It good form, everyone has a strong motive to hate the victim, an annoyingly controlling performer who threatened several people's jobs and offended the rest, and almost everyone whom Farrar questions lies about something only to be discovered later. There is also a fair amount of light-hearted good fun, and a very credible look at the New York City of the day including its highest and lower places. It is not a dark tale despite the suicide/murder of the victim, and does a good job of misdirecting suspicion nearly to the reveal.
It has gone to my wife, who commented that it looked good, and I think it worth reading although not on a caliber with the great mystery writers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 24, 2011
This is the second in a set of three books set in the Metropolitan Opera in the "Golden Age" around the beginning of the 20th Century. I never got a hold of the first book, A Cadenza for Caruso, but I didn't feel I missed anything by it--this can stand alone.
This was so fun to read I'm tempted to give it full marks really--it was one that was a pleasure from beginning to end, even if it's not a standout stylistically or as a whodunnit. In those respects it's quite ordinary, and it wouldn't occur to me to list Paul's Opera Mysteries as the best of mystery fiction. I'm sure a great deal of the reason I love it so much is that I am an Opera fan, and can't help but be greatly entertained by a picture of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City circa 1915, as told by American diva Geraldine Farrar and featuring as characters the great conductor Toscanini and singer Enrico Caruso. I loved "watching" golden age performances of Carmen and Tosca.
Farrar as depicted here is larger than life--witty, funny, flirtatious, outrageously egotistical even if good-hearted. A blurb from the New York Times Book Review inside avers that "if you think the portrait of Farrar is exaggerated, it isn't. She was exactly as depicted here." Well, she's great, gossipy company as she and Caruso try to untangle the murder of an obnoxious baritone.
This was so fun to read I'm tempted to give it full marks really--it was one that was a pleasure from beginning to end, even if it's not a standout stylistically or as a whodunnit. In those respects it's quite ordinary, and it wouldn't occur to me to list Paul's Opera Mysteries as the best of mystery fiction. I'm sure a great deal of the reason I love it so much is that I am an Opera fan, and can't help but be greatly entertained by a picture of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City circa 1915, as told by American diva Geraldine Farrar and featuring as characters the great conductor Toscanini and singer Enrico Caruso. I loved "watching" golden age performances of Carmen and Tosca.
Farrar as depicted here is larger than life--witty, funny, flirtatious, outrageously egotistical even if good-hearted. A blurb from the New York Times Book Review inside avers that "if you think the portrait of Farrar is exaggerated, it isn't. She was exactly as depicted here." Well, she's great, gossipy company as she and Caruso try to untangle the murder of an obnoxious baritone.
September 10, 2015
Prima Donna at Large is about opera singers trying to solve a mystery in New York in 1915. An obnoxious baritone who is filling in uses throat spray sabotaged with ammonia, which ruins his voice. Tenor Enrico Caruso and soprano Geraldine Ferrar try to figure out who put ammonia in the bottle by bumbling about interviewing their colleagues.
The mystery was okay, but it was not intended to be the main focus. Instead we are supposed to appreciate the interactions between the various opera stars. I did enjoy some of the interactions, but one onstage fight that took place late in the book was truly ridiculous.
I'm not a big opera fan, and I didn't realize until late in the book that most of the characters are based on real people. (Besides the two I already mentioned, Antonio Scotti, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, Arturo Toscanini, and Emmy Destinn also appear throughout the book). I've been to operas but don't know them in and out. I think this mystery would be enjoyed much more by someone who would appreciate all the operatic references.
The mystery was okay, but it was not intended to be the main focus. Instead we are supposed to appreciate the interactions between the various opera stars. I did enjoy some of the interactions, but one onstage fight that took place late in the book was truly ridiculous.
I'm not a big opera fan, and I didn't realize until late in the book that most of the characters are based on real people. (Besides the two I already mentioned, Antonio Scotti, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, Arturo Toscanini, and Emmy Destinn also appear throughout the book). I've been to operas but don't know them in and out. I think this mystery would be enjoyed much more by someone who would appreciate all the operatic references.
January 3, 2011
I'd give this 3 1/2 stars if I could, but I just can't move it to the 4 star realm. I enjoy Barbara Paul mysteries - those I've read anyway - and I enjoyed this one too. It was fun to have Geraldine Farrar as the heroine with help from Caruso of course. He was the funniest character in the book. I wonder if he was in real life. The mystery was mostly overwhelmed by all the opera and life things happening, and I was NOT surprised at the ending. I wanted more of Uncle Hummy! Thanks Julie Chuba for offering this book for sale.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews