Seeing Through – A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera

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Temporarily out of stock

ISBN: 9781250390424
Title: Seeing Through – A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera
Author: GORDON RICKY IAN

The true confessions of a working opera composer: an exhilarating story of \”a life that comes out of chaos.\”

At eight years old, Ricky Ian Gordon pulled The Victor Book of Opera off his piano teacher’s bookshelf, and his world shifted on its axis. Though scandal, sadness, and confusion would shake that world over the next few decades, its polestar remained constant. Music has been the guiding force of Gordon’s life; through it, he has been able not only to survive great sorrow but also to capture the depths of his emotion in song. It is this strength, this technical and visceral genius, that has made him one of our generation’s greatest composers.

In Seeing Through, Gordon writes with humor, insight, and incredible candor about his life and work: a tumultuous youth on Long Island, his artistic collaborations and obsessions, the creation of his compositions (including The Grapes of Wrath, 27, Orpheus and Euridice, Intimate Apparel, Ellen West, and more), his addictions and the abuses he endured, and the loss of his partner to AIDS and the devastation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As Gordon writes of that period: \”We were, thousands of us, Lazarus. We had to rise from the ashes. We didn’t have to rebuild our lives, we had to build new ones.\”

Gordon has succeeded in building a remarkable life, as well as a body of work that bears witness to all he survived in the process-one that will endure as a pivotal chapter in America’s songbook.

Format: Trade Paper
Publication date: 18/08/2025
Pages: 496
Temporarily out of stock