Midsummer Nights
A short story collection published by Quercus in 2009
Ruth Rendell was a wonderfully enthusiastic friend and supporter to Handel House. She loved the building itself which she would often describe as a sanctuary.
In celebration of the Glyndebourne Festival, Jeanette Winterson has brought together some of the best-loved and most critically acclaimed authors writing today to pen stories inspired by opera.
Includes an introduction by Jeanette Winterson; Alexander McCall Smith on Cosi Fan Tutte; Ali Smith on Fidelio; Andrew Motion on Peter Grimes; Andrew O’Hagan on Eugene Onegin; Anne Enright on La Boheme; Antonia Fraser on The Marriage of Figaro; Colm Toibin on Pearl Fishers; Jackie Kay on The Makropulos Affair; Joanna Trollope on L’Elisir d’Amore; Julie Myerson on Ariadne auf Naxos; Jeanette Winterson on La Fanciulla del West; Kate Atkinson on La Traviata; Kate Mosse on Pelleas et Melisande; Lynne Truss on The Turn of the Screw; Marina Warner on Dido and Aeneas; Paul Bailey on The Makropulos Affair; Posy Simmonds on Midsummer Night at Glyndebourne; Ruth Rendell on Theodora; Sebastian Barry on Natoma and Toby Litt on Don Giovanni.
Notes
A selection of 10 stories, commissioned to celebrate Glyndebourne’s 75th anniversary, including “The Martyr” by Ruth Rendell, a mystical tale based on Handel’s opera Theodora.
I have lots of Handel on my iPod. In the latest Wexford novel I put Handel on the inspector’s iPod. Handel means so much to me …
—Ruth Rendell 2John Wilson pays a visit to the Handel House Museum at 25 Brook Street in London’s Mayfair with conductor Christopher Hogwood and crime writer and Handel fan, Ruth Rendell
Contemporary Reads 3
Karin Fossum - The Caller
Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall
Robert Harris - Lustrum
Gillian Flynn - Dark Places
China Miéville - The City & The City
Footnotes
Handel House tribute 2015 ↩︎
Ruth Rendell discusses her love of Handel ↩︎
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