Revealing masks : exotic influences and ritualized performance in modernist music theater / W. Anthony Sheppard.

Author/creator Sheppard, William Anthony, 1969-
Format Book
Publication InfoBerkeley : University of California Press, ©2001.
Descriptionxv, 350 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Subjects
Music--20th century. --History and criticism.
Music in the theater.
Music theater--History and criticism.
Music--Performance.
Modernism (Music)

SeriesCalifornia studies in 20th-century music ; 1
California studies in 20th-century music ; 1. ^A473908
Contents Introduction: drawing connections in the margins. Defining music theater -- The multiplicity of the exotic -- Ritual and performance -- Borrowed masks: Greek, Japanese, and medieval. The masks of modernism -- Freedom in a tunic versus Frieze-dried classicism: Hellenism in modernist performance -- The uses of Noh -- Medievalism and the French modernist stage -- The mysteries of British music theater; or, dressing up for church. The audience as congregation -- Britten's parables -- Later British mysteries -- The varieties of ritual expression and criticism in American music theater. Orientalists and a crusader -- Partch's vision of "Integrated corporeal theater" and "Latter-day rituals" -- Bitter rituals for a lost nation: Partch and Bernstein -- God in popular music(al) theater -- Conclusion: removing the masks. Masking the human and the misogyny of masks -- Music theater now.
Abstract The author considers a wide-ranging constellation of important musical works in this fascinating exploration of ritualized performance in twentieth-century music. This book uncovers the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. Sheppard is especially interested in the use of the "exotic" in techniques of masking and stylization, identifying Japanese Noh, medieval Christian drama, and ancient Greek theater as the most prominent exotic models for the creation of "total theater." Drawing on an extraordinarily diverse--and in some instances, little-known--range of music theater pieces, Sheppard cites the work of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Honegger, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harry Partch, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Madonna. Artists in literature, theater, and dance--such as William Butler Yeats, Paul Claudel, Bertolt Brecht, Isadora Duncan, Ida Rubenstein, and Edward Gordon Craig--also play a significant role in this study. Sheppard poses challenging questions that will interest readers beyond those in the field of music scholarship. For example, what is the effect on the audience and the performers of depersonalizing ritual elements? Does borrowing from foreign cultures inevitably amount to a kind of predatory appropriation? Revealing Masks shows that compositional concerns and cultural themes manifested in music theater are central to the history of twentieth-century Euro-American music, drama, and dance.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 323-338) and index.
LCCN 00034350
ISBN0520223020 (cloth : alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk ML197 .S552 2001 ✔ Available Place Hold