Die jüdische Souffleuse

"Fate has a lot of humor." The first-person narrator of this novel is Adriana Altaras, and she tells with ravishing tragicomedy about the absurdities of everyday theater life, about an unexpected family reunion, and about why the Shoah, the tragedy of the 20th century, is the epicenter of her creative work. Adriana Altaras loves to direct - operas, plays, comedies, tragedies. But one thing she always finds is that you have to make sacrifices for it. Anchoring for weeks in the German wasteland, drowning homesickness in sweet and sour sauce at the local Chinese restaurant, memorizing forty-two names and life stories in twenty-four hours, forbidding French kissing on stage, and, if necessary, freeing the stage manager from the lacing floor. During rehearsals for Mozart's "Abduction from the Seraglio," the prompter, of all people, turns out to be the greatest Hera.