Synopses & Reviews
Serenade is an achingly beautiful memoir which follows the true lives of Franz Jung and Franziska Perger, as told by their daughter, Carol Jean Delmar.
The year is 1927. The place is Vienna, Austria. Franziska captivates Franz with her adolescent beauty. They have separate ambitions, but they dream about them together. And just when these dreams are finally being realized, Adolf Hitler changes their course forever.
The author has written a revolutionary memoir of her parents that is multifaceted in flavor and detail. First and foremost, Serenade is a love story. Secondly, it is an atypical Holocaust love story. And thirdly, it is an operatic love story that illustrates how music can raise the human spirit, save the human spirit, and give the human spirit hope.
From Vienna and Prague to Cuba and the United States — Franz and Franziska are forced to flee from Adolf Hitler's lair. The flavor of each locale can literally be tasted and inhaled by the reader.
Never before has a book depicted scenes in operas in such detail and connected the operatic theatricality with historical events and a true life love story. This nonfiction memoir reads like a novel, yet it is jam-packed with data that educates.
Franz's tragedy turns out to be his savior. And the two immigrants find a taste of the American dream in the magic world of Hollywood.
Although Carol Jean tells the story of her parents' struggles and joys, her own voice shines through so that this memoir becomes a tribute from the author to her parents, which is at times poetic, and has the capacity to move those who read it.
Carol Jean began by simply writing words on a page. However, throughout the process of creating Serenade, she was forced to analyze her own trials in the context of her family heritage, which has enriched her life so that the book has become dear to her and taken on a life of its own, which she is happy to now share with her readers.
Review
Praise For
Serenade
"Carol Jean Delmar has written a lovely book about her parents, telling their story with care and affection. The result is a story that draws you in immediately to their loves and lives, and makes you rejoice in their company and marvel at their grace and dignity. Franz's talk at Franziska's grave is one of the most beautiful speeches I have ever read. Serenade is a celebration of music, family, and one family's amazing history."
— FREDERICA VON STADE
One of the world's most beloved mezzo-sopranos
"Gripping and beautiful — the story of the author's parents, the musical culture that was a part of their being, the terror of having it all ripped away by the Nazis, is of course very familiar to me, and yet, as always, uniquely compelling to read. Carol Jean's memoir is a significant contribution to the genre. Congratulations."
— E. RANDOL SCHOENBERG, Attorney
Grandson of composers Arnold Schoenberg and Eric Zeisl
President of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
"Carol Jean Delmar serenades the reader in an enchanting and moving story that is both a tribute to her parents and a paean to the world of opera that she knows so well. Beyond the tale of a couple's triumph over the scourge of the Holocaust, it is a testimony to the power of loyalty, love — and the civilizing power of music in a world that forever lost its innocence."
— YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN
The Simon Wiesenthal Center
"When I read the beginning of Carol Jean's memoir about her parents, Franz and Franziska, I could picture the old beautiful Wien, with its romantic atmosphere, cafés, and glorious music. It was the perfect place for her parents to begin their everlasting love story, and therefore the place which was the most heartbreaking for them to leave. Carol Jean takes us on their uncertain journey from Vienna to the United States, with a flair for storytelling that weaves opera with history, and is soulful and compelling."
— VLADIMIR CHERNOV, Renowned baritone
Professor of Vocal Studies, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
"Carol Jean Delmar's Serenade recalls indelible memories of a world gone mad while brilliantly integrating moments of joy and fear. Ms. Delmar is a writer of substance whose story sadly reawakens the injustices of an uncivilized world."
— RABBI JERRY CUTLER
The Creative Arts Temple, Los Angeles
Film and theater critic, author and producer
"Carol Jean Delmar has written a most sympathetic book about two lives lived under extraordinary circumstances. This is not just a compelling love story told over many decades, but also a recollection of what can and did happen to good-hearted people under an unimaginably cruel regime. Carol Jean is not only masterful at painting a big picture full of life, love and sorrow, but also chronicles the minutiae of survival so as to remind us that vigilance is the perpetual price of freedom, and that those who find comfort in the heart of another are especially blessed."
— Tenor PETER KAZARAS
Professor of Music and Director of Opera UCLA
Artistic Director, Seattle Opera Young Artists Program
"Carol Jean Delmar has painted a rich picture of the opera culture of pre-World War II Europe. . . . She recounts her parents' forced odyssey from Hitler's Europe to safety in America, which she sets in a moving narrative of their long loving relationship. As an opera critic and journalist, Carol Jean has delved into both her family history and the musical life of the era, to present a vivid illustration of the destructive and inexorable power of brutal politics on both innocent individuals and artistic life alike. There are still many true stories of Holocaust and personal survival to be told, and this is one that has a contemporary resonance of the belated discovery of both self, family, and the role of music in civilized life."
— PAUL LAWRENCE ROSE
Mitrani Professor of History and Jewish Studies
Pennsylvania State University; author of Wagner: Race and
Revolution (Yale University Press) and Heisenberg and the Nazi
Atomic Bomb Project, 1939-1945 (University of California Press)
About the Author
Carol Jean Delmar is an opera and theater critic, author, and actress. She has contributed cover stories on opera singers Susan Graham, Vladimir Chernov, and Ferruccio Furlanetto to
Classical Singer magazine, and feature stories on entertainment and education to the
Los Angeles Times. She is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Daily News and has blogged on the
Huffington Post. Carol Jean holds a bachelor's degree in theater arts from UCLA and a master's degree in psychology, which she utilized while being a teacher and counselor in the 1970s. Her reviews can be read on OperaTheaterInk.com and OperaOnline.us.
Carol Jean is interviewing world-renowned opera singers for a nonfiction book she is writing on vocal technique. She resides in West Los Angeles in the home where she was raised.