RÁPIDO TO ENDSTATION

About the Book

Rápido to EndStation relates what happened to the author in the five years following his official retirement from the University of Southern California. The author compares himself to an Italian train, mistakenly called a Rápido, being far from rapid and stopping only at minor stations. In a similar fashion Boerlage did not stop working after his exit from U.S.C., but continued to direct and teach at universities and to coach students. Thus the analogy: both he and the train have merely taken a different route. Rápido to EndStation gives a frank, brutally honest description of his struggles—with age, bureaucracy, relationships. The many high, sometimes low points of an adventurous life are mixed with some homemade remedies against frustration and depression (among others). His major interest in writing was challenged when, with the onset of Parkinson’s disease, his barely legible handwriting impossible to decipher, the author was forced to collaborate with a computer: a Herculean task (he being far from technically astute) achieved.

Fifty years on stage (more precisely backstage as opera stage and T.V. director) are told; famous names recalled. The book is filled with self- mockery, fantasy, real life experiences, thoughts and visions. Surreal dreams intertwine with the author’s life work.

Portrait Incomplete (Xlibris 2005) was well reviewed by its readers.

His novel Changing Gears is soon to be published.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

A prima donna of a costume designer quitting just before the premiere, duos becoming solos when the tenor loses his voice to laryngitis, a wig flying across the stage of Aida, none of those disasters flusters the veteran, long out of the closet, Dutch-born, opera director, Frans Boerlage. His most entertaining memoirs of a rich life, filled with music, love and friendship remind all of us, who are, willy-nilly, passengers on the ‘Rapido to EndStation” to treasure the journey.
- DR. ANNETTE SMITH, LITERATURE PROFESSOR

In his recent book, the author allows us to share his extraordinary existence as Opera Stage Director, his life being artistically gratifying albeit difficult when dealing with temperamental “divas”, costuming catastrophes, and intricacies of set design.

He beckons us into his intimate world of friendships, both straight and gay, openly revealing the joy shared with Joseph, his companion of 30 years. One story tells us of the unemotional, unceremonious procedure to obtain domestic partnership status: “No witnesses, no trumpets, no rice, only the sum of $ 15 to be paid for the two copies we received!”

Eloquently written with some sadness of loss, Boerlage tells of his aging and the gradual descent into the world of Parkinson’s disease.

There are stories of his special love for “Pushkin”, the cat, of his early family life with a quite comfortable upbringing in Holland, his “return to school at the age of 78” and an especially frustrating encounter with the Social Security Department.

This memoir has elements of the excitement, love, anguish and all emotions, experienced during a fulfilling artistic life, and also the acceptance of changes wrought by age and illness. It is a compelling story of a unique man with a fascinating history.
- Bettina Gantsweg, co-author (with her mother’s diary) of: “Mama, are we there yet?”