Overture of Hope

Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich by Isabel Vincent

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

The Cook sisters were opera devotees. Their fascination with the art form led them to meet a number of people from the world of music and eventually, since Europe was such a cultural center at the time, some of those people were both German and Jewish. As the Nazis become more an more entrenched, the Jews came under increasing danger and the Cook sisters did what they could to help.

The story is an interesting one and the author expanded on the basic tale by adding quite a bit of padding. Some of it is fascinating. Up until Britain declared war on Germany the sisters moved back and forth from Britain to Germany or Austria helping people by smuggling out valuables. Their method was amusing.

After the war, the author focuses more on those they'd help than the sisters themselves and I found the book rather less interesting from that point forward but overall, if you like reading about a time long past and getting a flavour for live prior to, and after the second world war you'll quite like this one. Since much of the book reads like gossip, don't expect a terse account of the time. To enjoy this you need to relax and go with the flow. I think I would recommend the audio over the print version.



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