The Hard Bargain

Music, Medicine, and My Father Richard Tucker, Opera Legend

By: David Tucker, Burton Spivak

Narrated by: Tom Bauer

The Hard Bargain describes in vivid detail and elegant prose the clash of wills between a famous father and his hard-driving middle son. Richard Tucker, the American superstar tenor from the golden age of the Metropolitan Opera, demanded that his son become a surgeon. Rejecting his fathers wishes, David wanted to follow his father onto the opera stage.

Their struggle over Davids future - by turns hilarious and humiliating, wise and loving - is played out in medical and musical venues around the world. The father and son strike a bargain, the hard bargain of the title, which permitted both dreams to flicker for a decade until one (the right one, it turns out) bursts into sustaining flame.

This heartfelt memoir about a son's struggle against the looming power of a magnetic father is conveyed in a moving narrative that one reviewer has called the most dramatic exploration of the private life of a legendary singer in the annals of opera literature.

Visit the Tucker and Spivak website, thehardbargainbook.com, for more information.

©2018 David Tucker and Burton Spivak (P)2019 David Tucker and Burton Spivak

interesting but repetitive

Too repetitive.
poor pronunciation interferes with enjoying the story. Some interesting history of Opera! I couldn't wait for it to end!

This is a reader?

The reader of this book cannot pronounce ordinary words: indigent, minyan, Verdi. It doesn't matter if it's Italian, Hebrew, or plain English; he butchers it. Over and over. It makes it painful to listen.

On top of his appalling lack of preparation for this reading, he appears to have no idea where to pause at a transition before continuing or how to pace his reading to enhance meaning. He is an absolutely TERRIBLE reader for a potentially interesting and touching book.