Charles Frieth, preeminent composer, conductor and prodigious womaniser, is preparing for a performance of one of his early works, and the world premiere of "Demonic Aubade". Obstinate and myopic, he is oblivious to the growing turmoil around him; his wife's poor health and dissatisfaction; the exhausted efforts of his secretary; and, the disquieting diligence of his housekeeper, Maria. As the first performance draws near, the maestro is suddenly awoken to the chaos, and as Charles struggles to regain control of his life, a terrible tragedy begins to unfold. "For You" is a beautifully wrought and compelling libretto - It is Ian McEwan at his very best.
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The characters are etched with impressive economy by McEwan (The Evening Standard )
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
A powerful drama of passion, obsession and tragedy from one of Britain's greatest living writers.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This libretto is the text for the opera For You which opened earlier this year. Not knowing exactly what this was, I bought it because McEwan is one of my favourite writers and I have read almost all of his books. This is a VERY short read - only about 60-plus pages with very few words on each page - but it is nonetheless excellent and well worth reading. The story and quality of writing are classic Ian McEwan, but the opera format gives this another dimension beyond that of his novels in that the language has a real poetic and melodic quality. I have already booked tickets to see the opera. Highly recommended.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Not what I was expecting- it is the plot to an opera so not much prose!
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a truly awful piece of work.
Every character is a one-dimensional cliche - the grand composer who is successful in public but nasty in private, the poor put-upon assistant, the housekeeper secretly in love with him, the musician who is scared of him but gets over that by sleeping with him.
The writing is poor, and regardless of whether this isn't meant to be a book as such, but the script for an opera, it is more about Ian Mcewan trying to show how clever he is (parts of it even rhyme! Some words are sung, not spoken!) than telling any kind of story.
In 60 pages there is no time to develop any sort of plot at all - you meet the characters, something happens, and then, er, that's it.
This could have been written by a grupmy 14 year old as English homework, such is the lack of effort to it.
It feels very much like Ian Mcewan couldn't be bothered to put any kind of thought into it, so just knocked something out in his lunch hour, but no doubt still expects people to buy it because he is a 'famous author'.
In summary - arrogant, pretentious and unoriginal.
Every character is a one-dimensional cliche - the grand composer who is successful in public but nasty in private, the poor put-upon assistant, the housekeeper secretly in love with him, the musician who is scared of him but gets over that by sleeping with him.
The writing is poor, and regardless of whether this isn't meant to be a book as such, but the script for an opera, it is more about Ian Mcewan trying to show how clever he is (parts of it even rhyme! Some words are sung, not spoken!) than telling any kind of story.
In 60 pages there is no time to develop any sort of plot at all - you meet the characters, something happens, and then, er, that's it.
This could have been written by a grupmy 14 year old as English homework, such is the lack of effort to it.
It feels very much like Ian Mcewan couldn't be bothered to put any kind of thought into it, so just knocked something out in his lunch hour, but no doubt still expects people to buy it because he is a 'famous author'.
In summary - arrogant, pretentious and unoriginal.
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