In early 2006, Joseph Volpe retired from The Metropolitan Opera, where as general manager since 1990, he was one of New York’s most powerful and outspoken culture czars. Volpe joined The Met in 1964 and was the first general manager to rise through the ranks to the top. In The Toughest Show on Earth, he shares the day-to-day dramas, as well as the political and artistic intrigues, of life in a world shared by luminaries such as Luciano Pavarotti, Renee Fleming, former general managers Rudolf Bing and Anthony Bliss, and such visionary directors as Franco Zeffirelli and Julie Taymor.