Cinderella & Company

A knowing, witty, and deliciously wicked inside look at opera today -- the feuds and deals, maestros and managers, divine voices, and outsized egos.

Propelled by her lifelong passion for opera, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Manuela Hoelterhoff takes us on a two-year trip on the circuit with Cecilia Bartoli, the irresistible young mezzo whose popularity has set records in music circles around the world. We see Bartoli among her family, her colleagues, her rivals; how she happened; what it is to be a diva; where the money comes from; and what the price can be for success. And, traveling from the Metropolitan to the backstages of the legendary opera houses of Europe, we meet everyone in Bartoli's world -- the Wagnerite obsessed with her cyberspace fan mail; the charismatic tenor with a complex love life; Luciano Pavarotti, aiming for the high Cs in his twilight years -- even as Hoelterhoff lets fly (brilliantly informed) gossip and opinions along the way.

Dazzling entertainment, and an education in what makes the world of grand opera run -- and run amok.