Saints in the Limelight: Representations of the Religious Quest on the Post-1945 Operatic StageIn 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, Siglind Bruhn, distinguished author of such seminal studies as The Temptation of Paul Hindemith and Musical Ekphrasis, 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. François 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. |
Contents
Christian Souls in Battles Between Good and Evil | 3 |
Gods CountryGods Victories? | 53 |
Tough Politician or Good Shepherd? | 87 |
Two Dreamers of Nordic Nations Pious and Just | 117 |
Gods Unlikely Torchbearers | 143 |
The Strength of Conquered Fear | 159 |
A Saint in Manhattan | 175 |
Miguel Mañara | 185 |
The Buddha and the Mahatma | 391 |
Gods Intimates | 435 |
The Lonely Voices of Hadewijch and Maria Maddalena | 469 |
Gods Witnesses unto Death | 491 |
Magnus of Orkney | 533 |
Dietrich Bonhoeffer | 547 |
Representations of the Numinous and Exemplary | 573 |
Appendices | 589 |
Mary of Egypt and the Wisdom of Nonjudgment | 195 |
Gods Heralds | 225 |
Two Early Christian Missionaries | 267 |
Two Conflicted Reformers | 285 |
Gods CreaturesOur Suffering Siblings | 329 |
Scores | 599 |
623 | |
About the Author 635 | |
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Saints in the Limelight: Representations of the Religious Quest on the Post ... Siglind Bruhn No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
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