Title: far from a definitive or even well-written biography
Product review: This book is hardly "definitive" and not even well written with a style that loves the sensationalist but hardly factual. Mario Lanza was a tenor although not an opera singer as he only sang in one production early in career. As such, the biographer needs to know something about music and tenors. By his remarks, Armando Cesari clearly knows little or nothing about music. On page 22, he disputes the comment of Boris Goldowski (an opera authority of long standing) that Lanza didn't have the musical ability to learn the tenor part in the Beethoven 9th so he taught him the role of Fenton instead. Cesari then says he disputes that because of length and "not very diffilcult". Really? Those are two very different styles, Beethoven and Nicolai,and if Mr. Cesari doesn't know that then he has no business writing about music or singing. The rest of the book reads like sensationalist yellow journalism, something from The National Enquirer. Avoid it.
Would you say this review depicts the product in a flattering or unflattering light?
