Voices from beyond: Verdi's Don Carlos and the modern stage

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUNDULA KREUZER
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
German Language ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Past ◽  
Performance Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Don Carlos

It has often been suggested that a renewed fascination with Verdi’s Don Carlos coincided with the advent of Regieoper (or radically revisionist staging) in Germany over the past few decades. However, Don Carlos already counted among the most frequently revived operas in German-language theatres during the first half of the twentieth century. This article argues that neglect of this rich performance tradition is linked both to a German-centred narrative of the history of operatic production, which constructs the 1930s and 1940s as a gap in the development of ‘avant-garde’ direction, and to an over-emphasis on the visual side in recent academic discourse on operatic staging. These attitudes are challenged by a close look at selected German productions of Don Carlos from the 1920s to 1940s. Treatment of the opera's most difficult scenes – the mystical elements of the auto-da-fé finale and the dénouement – reveals striking continuities between the Weimar and Nazi eras, as well as conceptual affinities to some of the most acclaimed recent stagings. These findings call for a more historically grounded approach to operatic production.

Contemporary Discourse and the Oblique Narrative of Avant-gardism in Twentieth-Century Nigerian Art

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-23
Author(s):  
Clement Akapng
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
American Modernism ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

The history of Twentieth Century Nigerian art is characterized by ambiguities that impede understanding of the underlying modernist philosophies that inspired modern art from the 1900s. In the past five decades, scholars have framed the discourse of Contemporary Nigerian Art to analyze art created during that period in Africa starting with Nigeria in order to differentiate it from that of Europe and America. However, this quest for differentiation has led to a mono-narrative which only partially analyze modernist tendencies in modern Nigerian art, thus, reducing its impact locally and globally. Adopting Content Analysis and Modernism as methodologies, this research subjected literature on Twentieth Century Nigerian art to critical analysis to reveal its grey areas, as well as draw upon recent theories by Chika Okeke-Agulu, Sylvester Ogbechie, Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor to articulate the occurrence of a unique Nigerian avant-gardism blurred by the widely acclaimed discourse of contemporary Nigerian art. Findings reveal that the current discourse unwittingly frames Twentieth Century Nigerian art as a time-lag reactionary mimesis of Euro-American modernism. This research contends that such narrative blocks strong evidences of avant-garde tendencies identified in the works of Aina Onabolu, Ben Enwonwu, Uche Okeke and others, which exhibited intellectual use of the subversive powers of art for institutional/societal interrogation. Drawing upon modernist theories as a compass for analyzing the works of the aforementioned, this paper concludes that rather than being a mundane product of contemporaneity, Twentieth Century Nigerian art was inspired by decolonization politics and constituted a culture-specific avant-gardism in which art was used to enforce change. Thus, a new modern art discourse is proposed that will reconstruct Twentieth Century Nigerian art as an expression of modernism parallel to Euro-American modernism.

EPISTEMOLOGY OF TONE: AN OBITUARY FOR JULIEN JALÂL ED-DINE WEISS

Tempo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (281) ◽  
pp. 71-79
Author(s):  
Stefan Pohlit
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Just Intonation ◽  
Modal System ◽  
Helpful Tool ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
History Of ◽  
Major Discrepancy

AbstractDuring the 1980s, Julien Jalâl Ed-Dine Weiss, founder of the Al-Kindi ensemble of Aleppo, invented a qānūn in just intonation with which he attempted to solve a major discrepancy between the theory and practice of maqām-scales. Weiss objected to the introduction of Western standards, observing that they distort the significance of interval ratios and prevent a comparative understanding of the modal system as a transnational phenomenon. In the twentieth century, the implementation of equal-semitone temperament emerged simultaneously with a notable invasion of sociological criteria into musical inquiry. The polarity observed between westernisation and tradition can be seen most visibly in the present search for identity amongst Middle- and Near-Eastern musicians, but this schismogenic process can also be observed in the history of the Western avant-garde, where microtonal explorations have been halted in favour of extra-musical conceptuality. While cross-cultural musicians are faced with a new climate of distrust, it seems most likely that the principles that draw us apart may originate in the very patterns of thought in which our notion of culture operates. Weiss's tuning system may serve as a helpful tool to foster a new and universal epistemology of tone, bridging and transcending the apparent contradictions between the two spheres.

Salvage

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-859
Author(s):  
EVAN CALDER WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Insurance Law ◽  
Future Possibility ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of

This essay develops a history of salvage both as particular activity and as concept, arguing that it has quietly become one of the fundamental structures of thought that shape how we envision future possibility. However, the contemporary sense of the word, which designates the recuperation or search for value in what has already been destroyed, is a recent one and represents a significant transformation from the notion of salvage in early modern European maritime and insurance law. In that earlier iteration, salvage denoted payment received for helping to avert a disaster, such as keeping the ship and its goods from sinking in the first place. Passing through the dislocation of this concept into private salvage firms, firefighting companies, military usage, avant-garde art, and onto the human body itself in the guise of “personal risk,” the essay argues that the twentieth century becomes indelibly marked by a sense of the disaster that has already occurred. The second half of the essay passes into speculative culture, including fiction, video games, and film, to suggest that the most critical approaches to salvage have often come under the sign of science fiction but that the last decade in particular has shown how recent quotidian patterns of gentrification and defused antagonism have articulated stranger shifts in the figure of salvage than any speculative imaginary can currently manage.

“A composItIon wrItten wIthout creatIve lImItatIons” – Wanda Landowska and concerto for harpsichord and five instruments by ManueL de Falla (1923)

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (15) ◽  
pp. 67-107
Author(s):  
Ines R. Artola
Keyword(s):  
Strict Sense ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
20Th Century Music ◽  
The Third ◽  
Word Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

The aim of the present article is the analysis of Concerto for harpsichord and five instruments by Manuel de Falla – a piece which was dedicated by the composer to Wanda Landowska, an outstanding Polish harpsichord player. The piece was meant to commemorate the friendship these two artists shared as well as their collaboration. Written in the period of 1923-1926, the Concerto was the first composition in the history of 20th century music where harpsichord was the soloist instrument. The first element of the article is the context in which the piece was written. We shall look into the musical influences that shaped its form. On the one hand, it was the music of the past: from Cancionero Felipe Pedrell through mainly Bach’s polyphony to works by Scarlatti which preceded the Classicism (this influence is particularly noticeable in the third movement of the Concerto). On the other hand, it was music from the time of de Falla: first of all – Neo-Classicism and works by Stravinsky. The author refers to historical sources – critics’ reviews, testimonies of de Falla’s contemporaries and, obviously, his own remarks as to the interpretation of the piece. Next, Inés R. Artola analyses the score in the strict sense of the word “analysis”. In this part of the article, she quotes specific fragments of the composition, which reflect both traditional musical means (counterpoint, canon, Scarlatti-style sonata form, influence of old popular music) and the avant-garde ones (polytonality, orchestration, elements of neo-classical harmony).

Madhouse

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-363
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Tilley ◽  
Paul Christian ◽  
Susan Ledger ◽  
Jan Walmsley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Learning Disability ◽  
Social History ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Immersive Theatre ◽  
Disability Research ◽  
History Of Institutions

Until the very end of the twentieth century the history of learning difficulties was subsumed into other histories, of psychiatry, of special education and, indeed, of disability. Initiatives to enable people with learning difficulties and their families to record their own histories and contribute to the historical record are both recent and powerful. Much of this work has been led or supported by The Open University’s Social History of Learning Disability Research (SHLD) group and its commitment to developing “inclusive history.” The article tells the story of the Madhouse Project in which actors with learning difficulties, stimulated by the story of historian activist Mabel Cooper and supported by the SHLD group, learned about and then offered their own interpretations of that history, including its present-day resonances. Through a museum exhibition they curated, and through an immersive theatre performance, the actors used the history of institutions to alert a wider public to the abuses of the past, and the continuing marginalization and exclusion of people with learning difficulties. This is an outstanding example of history’s potential to stimulate activism.

Modernist Dante

2021 ◽  
pp. 633-650
Author(s):  
Daniela Caselli
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
James Joyce ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Ezra Pound ◽  
First Century ◽  
Djuna Barnes ◽  
Dorothy Richardson ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This chapter traces a history of Dante’s reception in anglophone literature between the 1870s and the 1950s. It acknowledges his importance in Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce, but engages more closely with Samuel Beckett, Djuna Barnes, and Virginia Woolf. It shows that the modernist Dante that emerges from these authors’ work is both a formal and political one: recruited as an anti-authoritarian voice from the past and seen anew from feminist and queer perspectives, this is not a twenty-first century Dante forced against his will to virtue-signal, however; on the contrary, this is a Dante anachronistically familiar with key ‘vices’ of twentieth-century authors, readers and commentators. Focusing on sullenness, resistance, and fatigue, the chapter argues for a new understanding of modernist experiments with Dante’s political and formal complexity that refuse to use him as a ‘code or a weapon […] to crush someone’, as Dorothy Richardson put it.

A short history of Polish formations protecting the governing bodies of the state

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (38) ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Aneta Drożdż
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Short History ◽  
Control Subsystem ◽  
State Security ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important People ◽  
The Moment

This paper presents a short history of Polish formations protecting the governing bodies of the state, starting from the moment Poland regained independence at the end of the twentieth century. The considerations are presented against the rules and principles of the functioning of the state security system, with particular emphasis on the control subsystem. This paper demonstrates the need to research attitudes to safety in the past, in order to develop and apply effective contemporary solutions. The considerations contained in it also concern the existing threats to the management of state organs. They may contribute to further discussions on the purpose and rules of operation of the formation which is supposed to protect the most important people in the state.

Redefining Censorship

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-142
Author(s):  
Esther B. Schupak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Choice ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Film Images ◽  
History Of

Abstract Because of its potential for fostering antisemitic stereotypes, in the twentieth century The Merchant of Venice has a history of being subject to censorship in secondary schools in the United States. While in the past it has often been argued that the play can be used to teach tolerance and to fight societal evils such as xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, I argue that this is no longer the case due to the proliferation of performance methods in the classroom, and the resultant emphasis on watching film and stage productions. Because images – particularly film images – carry such strong emotional valence, they have the capacity to subsume other pedagogical aspects of this drama in their emotional power and memorability. I therefore question whether the debate over teaching this play is truly a question of ‘censorship’, or simply educational choice.

Sino-Vietnamese sources for the Nguyễn Period: an Introduction

1967 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 600-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Viet Nam ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Methods ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Remains

‘Les livres historiques sont rares en pays annamite: le climat et les guerres ont concouru a les de truire.’ When he wrote those words in 1904 Pelliot no doubt hoped that they would be true only of the past; but the troubled history of Việt-Nam in the middle decades of the twentieth century has made them also prophetic. Before modern methods for combating the climate could be brought to bear on the problem of archive preservation further wars occurred to destroy even more of the country's historical remains, as well as to disperse many of those which survived.

scholarly journals Lviv as the cradle of Polish independence organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol 201 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-545
Author(s):  
Janusz Zuziak
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Social Activists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Lviv occupies a special place in the history of Poland. With its heroic history, it has earned the exceptionally honorable name of a city that has always been faithful to the homeland. SEMPER FIDELIS – always faithful. Marshal Józef Piłsudski sealed that title while decorating the city with the Order of Virtuti Militari in 1920. The past of Lviv, the always smoldering and uncompromising Polish revolutionist spirit, the climate, and the atmosphere that prevailed in it created the right conditions for making it the center of thought and independence movement in the early 20th century. In the early twentieth century, Polish independence organizations of various political orientations were established, from the ranks of which came legions of prominent Polish politicians and military and social activists.

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