"Written on Skin - Opera's New Masterpiece - If opera is a dead art form, somebody forgot to tell George Benjamin." Mike Silverman, AP

"Magic and irresistible... the best opera written over the last twenty years." Le Monde

"Feels like the work of a genius unleashed." Alex Ross, The New Yorker

"What can an opera do for us today? Very simple I think: move you... enchant... stir you... thrill you... just like four hundred years ago except we have to find new ways of doing it." George Benjamin, composer of Written on Skin

Opera Lively Press is proud to present the first guidebook to the best 21st-century opera to date. If you thought you didn't like contemporary opera, you are about to change your mind.

The guide includes the full text, synopsis, musical commentary with examples from the score, discography reviews, performance history, staging reviews, exclusive unusually deep interviews with the composer George Benjamin, the author of the text Martin Crimp, the stage director Katie Mitchell, and singers Barbara Hannigan, Christopher Purves, Tim Mead, and Tammy Coil.
About the Author: Luiz Gazzola, MD, PhD, has loved opera since a lucky encounter with Carmen decades ago. Over the years, he has explored the opera repertory from Monteverdi to George Benjamin, taking in hundreds of recorded and live performances (he used to live two blocks from the Metropolitan Opera House), as well as reading widely on the subject. Opera is in Dr. Gazzola's blood, given that he is a dual citizen of Italy and the United States who speaks five languages. He holds the position of Chief Editor at Opera Lively, and is the author of "Opera Lively - The Interviews," volumes 1 and 2, and "The Opera Lively Guides - Les Troyens" also published by Opera Lively Press. His passion for this fascinating art form drove him to embrace a second career as a registered opera journalist, while remaining active as a Board Certified Psychiatrist. Dr. Gazzola, who authored a book on Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, is a graduate of Columbia University, with a doctoral degree in Psychoanalysis from the University of Paris, France. He has written articles for cultural magazines, and led a seminar on Cinema and Psychoanalysis at Columbia University. Opera, cinema, and literature join fine wines as his main interests together with his family and profession. He currently lives with his wife Marta in North Carolina, where he teaches students from Duke University. In between Psychiatry lessons, he always makes a point of introducing opera to his students, refusing to be discouraged by a dismal 6% conversion rate for new opera fans among them.