Voices in a Mask

When a singer places her voice in the part of the face just behind the nose and eyes - the mask - her voice is at its clearest and most natural. But there are also masks that obscure and distort a person's intentions or features, making a singer's instrument of identity a tool of deception. Turning on images of disguise in literature, theater, and opera, this short-story collection explores themes of identity and subterfuge in a series of fictional fugues that range from comic to poignant.Green weaves librettos and scores together with authentic biographies of singers and composers, contemporary settings, and imaginative twists. Throughout, themes of concealment - a common element in opera - are at the forefront as characters obscure or reveal themselves, using false means to say true things and using the truth to speak to the power of art. Touching on Don Giovanni, Tosca, Rigoletto, and more, these bright stories illuminate literature and life - and the deceptions in both - with brio.