Does an opera producer do anything besides tell the singers where to stand? Can a single note be played more or less beautifully on the piano? In these essays, all originally published in The New York Review of Books, five of our most accomplished contemporary artists and critics explore the relationship between technique and interpretation in the performing arts. Tom Stoppard discusses how playwrights control the ways in which information flows from the stage to the audience. Charles Rosen highlights the very physical relationship between the pianist and the instrument. Jonathan Miller describes how he has found new stagings for some of our best-loved operas. Garry Wills argues that the collaborative and commercial pressures of filmmaking have produced some of our greatest cinematic triumphs. And Geoffrey O'Brien looks at how hip music lovers in the nineties rediscovered sixties pop-icon Butt Bacharach. Witty, trenchant, often surprising, and always insightful, this collection is essential reading for all devotees of the performing arts.