This book recounts the bedazzled impressions of an eight-year-old spectator who grew up to become a music critic. Sixty years of nights spent in concert halls and opera houses. Sixty years of encounters, interviews and touring with orchestras and dance companies, sixty years in which tight bonds were formed with extraordinary dancers, choreographers and musicians: Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire, Nureyev, Rosella Hightower, Carlo-Maria Giulini, Montserrat Caballe, Jonas Kaufmann… to name but a few.

In this enticing, generous narrative, Gérard Mannoni communicates to readers the incredible power of fascination of the fabulous world of live performance. A world in which every shred of strength, intelligence and talent possessed by every single person involved is focused on a single goal: providing the best possible performance from the moment the curtain rises.

Sixty years of memories of performances, encounters and European and world tours, as told by a renowned music and dance critic.

A unique eyewitness account of the worlds of music and dance from the 1940s to the present day.