From 1906 until 1922, Geraldine Farrar was the Metropolitan Opera's most popular and glamorous prima donna. Convinced that music must always serve the drama, this beautiful and magnetic singer often sacrificed tonal beauty to dramatic effect. Her acting was noted for its intensity and realism. Nevertheless, Farrar was a superb singer, possessing a beautiful lyric soprano voice. Enrico Caruso was her frequent operatic partner, guaranteeing sold-out houses. She performed 493 times in 29 roles, creating Puccini's Madama Butterfly in 1906. Farrar was also a star of the silent screen, appearing in 14 films from 1915 to 1920. In retirement, she was mentor and friend to the African-American diva Camilla Williams, enabling her to become the first African American to have a regular contract with a major American opera company.

Spain's southern city of Seville basks in romantic myths and legends, evoking the scent of jasmine and orange blossom. But there is an ascetic core to its sybaritic spirit. For all their fame as passionate performers, the poet Unamuno called Sevillanos "finos y frios"-refined and cool. Once Europe's most cosmopolitan metropolis, bridging cultures of East and West and hub of a sea-borne empire, Seville was defined by Spain's great seventeenth-century playwright Lope de Vega as "port and gateway to the Indies." The city retains both the swagger of its seafaring heyday, and the sensual flavor of Moorish al-Andalus. Seville produced Spain's lowest ruffians, grandest grandees and a seductive gypsy culture that colors our wider perception of Spain. Elizabeth Nash explores the palaces, the mosques, the patios, fountains and wrought-iron balconies of Seville, Cordoba and Granada, cities celebrated for centuries by Europe's finest painters, poets, satirists and travel writers for their voluptuous beauty and vibrant cultural mix.

This is the only autobiography of America's first internationally renowned African-American classical vocal coach for concert, oratorio, and opera as well as a distinguished arranger and interpretive authority on Negro Spirituals. Mrs. Lee has been a pioneer in the musical field as the first African-American hired onto the staffs of the Metropolitan Opera and the Curtis Institute of Music. She worked with world-acclaimed singers Elisabeth Schumann, Paul Robeson, Dorothy Maynor, Lawrence Winters, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Jessye Norman, and Kathleen Battle. Her appearance on PBS TV with Kathleen Battle and Wynton Marsalis was a fascinating critical interaction between artists and teacher. She has been honored by the United Nations and the National Women's Hall of Fame. With illustrations.

In this new novel by the celebrated author of The Weeping Woman on the Streets of Prague, Prokop Poupa, a professor of literature in Prague, is dismissed by the communist regime and reduced to working as a cleaner in a block of flats. He negotiates this diminished existence among a circle of dissidents, until his young son emigrates with his former wife to England, and the arrival of the Velvet Revolution finds Prokop haunted by past bereavements and betrayals and unable to reintegrate himself into society with its new challenges.

A novel, translated by Liz Nash. Lucie Daubigne is an adventurous eight-year old whose idyllic childhood ends when, given a new room of her own, she is visited by an ogre. It is their secret, and if she tells anyone she will be sorry; so Lucie becomes the ogre's third victim, and is abused each night by her stepbrother Ferdinand. She becomes strange, drawing into herself, waiting in dread for the nightly visit.

Spain's southern city of Seville basks in romantic myths and legends, evoking the scent of jasmine and orange blossom. But there is an ascetic core to its sybaritic spirit. For all their fame as passionate performers, the poet Unamuno called Sevillanos "finos y frios"--refined and cool. Once Europe's most cosmopolitan metropolis, bridging cultures of East and West and hub of a sea-borne empire, Seville was defined by Spain's great seventeenth-century playwright Lope de Vega as "port and gateway to the Indies". The city retains both the swagger of its seafaring heyday, and the sensual flavour of Moorish al-Andalus. Seville produced Spain's lowest ruffians, grandest grandees and a seductive gypsy culture that colours our wider perception of Spain. Elizabeth Nash explores the palaces, the mosques, the patios, fountains and wrought-iron balconies of Seville, Cordoba and Granada, cities celebrated for centuries by Europe's finest painters, poets, satirists and travel writers for their voluptuous beauty and vibrant cultural mix. CITIES OF SEDUCTION AND DISPLAY: Carmen and Don Juan; holy processions, fiestas and the romance of gypsy music; matadors, cigarreras and flamenco. CITIES OF POETS AND PERFORMERS: Passion and politics from Cervantes to Lorca; the romantic yearnings of Washington Irving and Gerald Brenan; Velazquez, Murillo and Valdes Leal: the baroque and the realist. CITIES OF EMPIRE AND CONQUEST: Seville's conquest of the Americas; the Moorish splendour of Cordoba; Granada and the legacy of Civil War.