Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater
W. Anthony Sheppard
Abstract
This book explores ritualized performance in twentieth-century music, uncovering the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. The book focuses especially 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 a diverse range of music theater pieces, it cites the work of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Honegger, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harry Partch, ... More
This book explores ritualized performance in twentieth-century music, uncovering the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. The book focuses especially 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 a diverse range of music theater pieces, it 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. The book 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? The book 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.
Keywords:
Japanese Noh,
Christian drama,
Greek theater,
Igor Stravinsky,
Benjamin Britten,
Arthur Honegger,
Peter Maxwell Davies,
Harry Partch,
Leonard Bernstein,
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2001 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520223028 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: May 2012 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520223028.001.0001 |
