Falling up : the days and nights of Carlisle Floyd : the authorized biography / Thomas Holliday ; with a foreword by Plácido Domingo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holliday, Thomas.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Composers--United States--Biography.

Composers.

Floyd, Carlisle.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (540 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Actors know about "falling up": a split-second ignition from the wings, propelling entrance as a new character, an unwilled ascent to a different mode of being, an in-body experience that overlays preparation, opportunity, choice, or chance. Falling Up, the first and only full-length Floyd study, is a metaphor for humanity's uncanny ability to rise from seeming disaster into rebirth. Floyd's consistent succession of soars, stumbles, slides, or wrenches sings of triumph over odds. A modern Renaissance man, Floyd is our greatest living opera composer and librettist, a trained concert pianist, a master stage director, and a teacher. In Falling Up, Holliday offers an intimate account of the life that shaped the words and music. Combining insights from hundreds of interviews with Floyd, his family, and many of the last half-century's greatest singers, conductors, and opera administrators, Falling Up traces Floyd's Southern roots and the struggles and sacrifices that accompanied his rise to operatic stardom. With more than forty photographs, the detailed evolution of Floyd's fourteen operas, and in-depth analysis of his nonoperatic works, Falling Up is essential reading for opera fans and professionals alike, a book that moves, informs, and entertains.

Contents:

""With a Foreword by Placido Domingo""; ""Contents""; ""Illustrations""; ""Foreword""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""Abbreviations""; ""1 The Cradle""; ""2 Where's Daddy?""; ""3 Golden Days""; ""4 Dark Adolescence""; ""5 Escape""; ""6 Swimming with Yankees""; ""7 Young Professor Floyd Writes an Opera""; ""8 Women, and Other""; ""9 The Old Girl,""; ""10 The Short, Fast Fall to Fame""; ""11 The Climb to Wuthering Heights ""; ""12 The Grand One""; ""13 At the Oars""; ""14 Of Mice, Men, Martyrs, Flowers, Hawks""; ""15 Completed Circle""

""16 Synthesizing Opera and Music Theater""""17 Falling Down""; ""18 Standing Up""; ""19 Looking Back, Moving On Back""; ""20 Unmatched Experience""; ""21 Late Fruits""; ""22 Twilight in Tallahassee""; ""Mysteries of South Carolina""; ""Notes""; ""Selected Bibliography""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780815651956

0815651953

OCLC:

824508709