The Metropolitan Opera Murders
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
When the prompter falls dead during the second act of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre during a matinee performance at the Metropolitan Opera, as one can imagine, it causes quite a stir, especially when it is discovered that the deceased, a one time world famous Heldentenor has been poisoned. The detective assigned to the case, Lt. Quentin, finds himself immersed in the back stage drama of professional opera. His task is made more difficult when he decides that it had really been the star soprano who had been the intended victim, and not the prompter. Will he be able to solve the case before there is another Metropolitan Opera Murder?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First published in 1951, this slightly above average mystery from Traubel (1899–1972), the leading soprano at New York's Metropolitan Opera in her day, opens onstage during a performance of Die Walküre. Elsa Vaughn, a celebrated Wagnerian soprano who's performing the role of Brünnehilde, watches in horror as Rudolf Salz, who's filling in as prompter, convulses and dies. It soon becomes apparent that Salz was poisoned, and Elsa may have been the intended victim. Elsa teams up with Lt. Sam Quentin, a police detective, to discover the murderer among a colorful cast that includes an opera manager named Aaron Van Cleff (as in the musical notation) and members of a prominent family named DeBrett (as in the guide to the English peerage). Meanwhile, enormous egos collide over Wagnerian interpretation amid bawdy backstage doings. Series editor Leslie Klinger provides his usual enlightening annotations. While by no means a classic, this entry in the Library of Congress Classics series is good fun for opera lovers.
