Cinderella & Company: Backstage at the Opera with Cecilia Bartoli

There aren't many books about opera--or anything else, for that matter--that make you laugh out loud, but this is one of them. In her first book, Hoelterhoff, who won a Pulitzer for her cultural criticism at the Wall Street Journal, had the bright idea of following superstar Bartoli around for a time to take the temperature of the contemporary opera world. Bartoli herself isn't all that interesting--she's pretty and charming, has a superb coloratura mezzo but a tiny repertoire, and has made her reputation mostly by showy recordings--but it really doesn't matter. She is just a box-office name on which to hang as witty and bitchy a picture of this rarefied world as the gossipiest opera lover could ask for. Divas struggling with their weight and declining reputations; grasping managers; brutally cynical opera officials; Pavarotti fighting for his lost top notes and the adrenaline of ovations; and excuses for missing performances that make ""the dog ate my homework"" seem inspired--all are recurring elements in Hoelterhoff's delicious portrait. She seems, in the two years she followed Bartoli, to have been everywhere and talked to everyone who counts in the opera world; but everything she is told gets filtered through her scintillating sense of the ridiculous. Only one quibble: It may be her WSJ background, but she seems never to have encountered a musicians' union she didn't hate, whereas the ludicrous sums paid to some stars seem to warrant only a dismissive shrug. 8 pages of photos not seen by PW. 50,000 first printing. (Sept.)