Really? I was under the impression that there are hardly any serialist composers under the age of 70, meaning the style is rapidly heading toward a time when it won't be a living style.
In any event, Fogelsong is full of it. As you note, it's a little tough to tell what he means by "contemporary," since he talks about Dolores Claiborne, Britten's operas (written between 1945 and 1974), and hardly anything else. He mentions headlines, so maybe he means Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic. Nixon is a great, great piece, with fantastic music and a really terrific, if eccentric, libretto - I haven't seen Klinghoffer and can't really comment on it; Doctor Atomic does, indeed, have libretto problems, for which I blame bad decisions by Adams and Sellars (long story). Possibly the most successful American opera of the last 20 years is Mark Adamo's Little Women, which is not exactly on mythic subjects. It is a good piece and gets performed a lot.
I have no problem with his disliking Dolores Claiborne and stating what didn't work for him; however, there are reviewers, including me, who thought the libretto extremely strong and the music effective and successful. The idea that opera has to be mythic to succeed is crap and so is his claim that contemporary music doesn't write about mythic subjects.
Regarding myth - okay, he loves Wagner, fine. So do I. That Wagner succeeded wildly in the realm of myth in some of his operas doesn't mean it's the only potential source. Historically, composers have based operas on classical era literature (Homer, Virgil, etc.); Shakespeare; the Bible; great authors; contemporary works.
To read him, you might think there would be absolutely no chance of writing a good opera about a poet, a painter, and their more or less prostitute girlfriends; good thing someone forgot to tell Puccini about that. Or about romantic rivalries within a traveling troupe of actors or in an Italian village. Or about a philandering nobleman, his long-suffering wife, and their servants. Good thing no one told Mozart about that, and of course Nozze is based on what was a then-contemporary play. I'll also stretch "contemporary" back into the 1930s and mention Lulu and, of course, Porgy & Bess, which is about ordinary, everyday people.
Verdi based his librettos on a range of sources: the Bible (Nabucco), plays by the likes of Schiller (Luisa Miller, Don Carlo, I Masnadieri) and Hugo (Rigoletto, Ernani) contemporary novels (La Traviata), Shakespeare, older plays, etc.
As far as mythic subjects go, oddly, contemporary composers write about mythic subjects. Does Reiman's "Lear" count? How about Birtwistle's "Gawain" and "The Minotour"? Sariaho's "L'Amour de Loin"? Adamo's "Mary Magdalene"? (which is terrible, but it's because of a ghastly libretto and music that just doesn't work very well).
He's flailing around a lot. He needs to be a lot more specific and needs to name names, and I don't think he'll get very far in making his case.
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Date: 2013-10-06 06:43 am (UTC)In any event, Fogelsong is full of it. As you note, it's a little tough to tell what he means by "contemporary," since he talks about Dolores Claiborne, Britten's operas (written between 1945 and 1974), and hardly anything else. He mentions headlines, so maybe he means Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic. Nixon is a great, great piece, with fantastic music and a really terrific, if eccentric, libretto - I haven't seen Klinghoffer and can't really comment on it; Doctor Atomic does, indeed, have libretto problems, for which I blame bad decisions by Adams and Sellars (long story). Possibly the most successful American opera of the last 20 years is Mark Adamo's Little Women, which is not exactly on mythic subjects. It is a good piece and gets performed a lot.
I have no problem with his disliking Dolores Claiborne and stating what didn't work for him; however, there are reviewers, including me, who thought the libretto extremely strong and the music effective and successful. The idea that opera has to be mythic to succeed is crap and so is his claim that contemporary music doesn't write about mythic subjects.
Regarding myth - okay, he loves Wagner, fine. So do I. That Wagner succeeded wildly in the realm of myth in some of his operas doesn't mean it's the only potential source. Historically, composers have based operas on classical era literature (Homer, Virgil, etc.); Shakespeare; the Bible; great authors; contemporary works.
To read him, you might think there would be absolutely no chance of writing a good opera about a poet, a painter, and their more or less prostitute girlfriends; good thing someone forgot to tell Puccini about that. Or about romantic rivalries within a traveling troupe of actors or in an Italian village. Or about a philandering nobleman, his long-suffering wife, and their servants. Good thing no one told Mozart about that, and of course Nozze is based on what was a then-contemporary play. I'll also stretch "contemporary" back into the 1930s and mention Lulu and, of course, Porgy & Bess, which is about ordinary, everyday people.
Verdi based his librettos on a range of sources: the Bible (Nabucco), plays by the likes of Schiller (Luisa Miller, Don Carlo, I Masnadieri) and Hugo (Rigoletto, Ernani) contemporary novels (La Traviata), Shakespeare, older plays, etc.
As far as mythic subjects go, oddly, contemporary composers write about mythic subjects. Does Reiman's "Lear" count? How about Birtwistle's "Gawain" and "The Minotour"? Sariaho's "L'Amour de Loin"? Adamo's "Mary Magdalene"? (which is terrible, but it's because of a ghastly libretto and music that just doesn't work very well).
He's flailing around a lot. He needs to be a lot more specific and needs to name names, and I don't think he'll get very far in making his case.