With A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF OPERA, Yuval Sharon offers the reader an opportunity to weigh opera’s historical development against its current position in the wider culture, with a particular emphasis on how our attitudes towards it have shifted and what we might do to shift them further to ensure its survival and continued relevance.

Which sounds quite academic, I know, but I promise Sharon’s passion for the topic shines through on every page of this engaging, accessible book. While he does assume you’ve got some basic opera knowledge, there’s enough context here for even neophytes to follow along with each of his points—and to interrogate those points against their own experience of the performing arts, as viewers or creators. I had an excellent time doing just that, and usually found Sharon and I ended up in the same place even when we took different routes. That made it all the more fun.

Basically, if you’re after a deep dive into opera practice, you want this book yesterday. It left me all fired up and eager to explore opera’s contemporary face.

A New Philosophy of Opera is a stunning study by opera from the talented, experienced Yuval Sharon.
To give you a bit of context to make more sense of my review I am not an opera aficionado; I had little experience with and knowledge of operas prior to reading this book, but I was not entirely alien to the world of operas.
As Sharon tells, my first experience of an opera was when my aunt took me to one in my early teens. Unlike Sharon, I was mesmerised. I thought “this story could best be told as an opera”. My cousin, who is younger than me, and about Sharon’s age when his father took him to his first opera, had a similar experience as Sharon. We both love the art as grownups, and we both do not engage with it as much as we’d like.
Upon reading A New Philosophy of Opera (by the way, it is such a fitting name), I feel that I understand, appreciate and like it more.
Sharon’s study/essays make the art form more accessible, engaging and easier to understand.
This book is also written and presents information the way I favour in non-fiction titles.