Research Catalog

Title

Saints in the limelight : representations of the religious quest on the post-1945 operatic stage / by Siglind Bruhn.

Author

Bruhn, Siglind

Publication

Hillsdale, NY : Pendragon Press, c2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxvi, 635 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

In the small list of scholarly works on music after World War II, there are few studies of the operatic repertory and none at all on the surprisingly large number of operas on religious themes. In this interdisciplinary study of thirty-eight music dramatic works on saintly subjects, the author asks why this phenomenon occurred in the last half of the previous century and investigates how contemporary composers express spiritual mysteries. The works examined include celebrated masterpieces, lesser works by renowned composers, and gems by composers who were highly esteemed in their own country and time. Although all the works she discusses have been publicly performed and almost half of them commercially recorded, many have never been discussed in print outside their country of origin and none of them has been examined to ask how the musical language and the dramatic elements convey the religous quest in all its complexity. The range of works under scrutiny range from Messiaien's St. Francois d'Assise to Philipp Glass's Satyagraha; from Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites to Menotti's Saint of Bleecker Street; from Tavener's Mary of Egypt to Tomasi's Miguel de Manana.

Series Statement

Dimension & diversity series ; no. 5

Uniform Title

Dimension & diversity no. 5.

Subject

• 1900-1999
• Opera > 20th century
• Saints in opera

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 599-622) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

pt. I. Allegories and the Embodied Christ -- pt. II. National Heroes -- pt. III. Antiheroes -- pt. IV. Messengers of Christ's Saving Grace -- pt. V. Teachers of the Compassionate Path -- pt. VI. Charismatics and Mystics -- pt. VII. Victims and Martyrs -- Conclusion: Representations of the Numinous and Exemplary in Post-1945 Opera.

ISBN

1576470962

LCCN

^^2003018493

OCLC

• 53130971
• SCSB-12494625

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library