A Wagnerian Battle for Souls: Parsifal and the Crisis in American Protestantism, 1882–1904

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Richard Strauch
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Music Drama ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
Reception Study ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Protestant Clergy ◽  
Religious Controversy ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
The Individual

The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal in December 1903 stirred what was arguably the first American religious controversy over an artistic event to claim national attention in the twentieth century. Although the outcome was predictable – the protests appeared only to fuel box office success – the significance lies in what this controversy reveals about the music drama's most ardent opponents and supporters at a key moment in American religious history. The 1903 Parsifal controversy unfolded in the midst of a crisis in American Protestantism, as conservative establishment Protestants defended their weakening hold on American culture, and their theologically liberal brethren viewed that same culture as both a source of spiritual inspiration and a cause for redemption. Drawing primarily upon accounts published in the New York press, nationally circulated periodicals (including strongly partisan contributions to the debate by The Musical Courier), and the writings of several prominent Protestant clergy and lay leaders, this reception study argues that the religious controversy surrounding the 1903 Parsifal production was a substantive skirmish in this American Protestant crisis, and brought forward competing interpretations of the music drama which highlighted the cultural implications of what had been, until that point, largely a theological dispute. Conservative response fastened onto elements of the drama found to be sacrilegious, while liberal response was conditioned by its kinship to the nineteenth-century phenomenon of Kunstreligion, and a broad view of redemption that extended beyond the individual soul to the artwork and the artist, and to all of culture.

Filled with Spirit and Power: Protestant Clergy in Politics. By Laura R. Olson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 174p. $57.50 cloth, $18.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 1005-1006
Author(s):  
Paul J. Weber
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
Family Values ◽  
State University ◽  
Protestant Clergy ◽  
African American Pastors ◽  
The Family ◽  
Limited Scope

Laura Olson is one of a small but energetic and influential group of Christian political scientists determined to bring the debate politically legitimate called it either racist or sexist. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, African American pastors held the most consistently conservative views on family values, although they also saw the connections among crime, violence, and the deterioration of the family. Within the authorÕs intentionally limited scope, this is an excellent study, but one should be cautious about generalizing.

International Opera in Nineteenth-century New York

2020 ◽  
pp. 244-269
Author(s):  
Karen Ahlquist
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War I ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
World War ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
The City

This chapter charts how canonic repertories evolved in very different forms in New York City during the nineteenth century. The unstable succession of entrepreneurial touring troupes that visited the city adapted both repertory and individual pieces to the audience’s taste, from which there emerged a major theater, the Metropolitan Opera, offering a mix of German, Italian, and French works. The stable repertory in place there by 1910 resembles to a considerable extent that performed in the same theater today. Indeed, all of the twenty-five operas most often performed between 1883 and 2015 at the Metropolitan Opera were written before World War I. The repertory may seem haphazard in its diversity, but that very condition proved to be its strength in the long term. This chapter is paired with Benjamin Walton’s “Canons of real and imagined opera: Buenos Aires and Montevideo, 1810–1860.”

Chicago's Auditorium Building: Opera or Anarchism

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siry
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social History ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opera House ◽  
Opera Houses

Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building in Chicago (1886-1890) is here analyzed in the context of Chicago's social history of the 1880s. Specifically, the building is seen as a capitalistic response to socialist and anarchist movements of the period. The Auditorium's principal patron, Ferdinand W. Peck, created a theater that was to give access to cultural and civic events for the city's workers, to draw them away from both politicized and nonpoliticized "low" urban entertainments. Adler and Sullivan's theater was to serve a mass audience, unlike opera houses of the period, which held multiple tiers of boxes for privileged patrons. This tradition was represented by the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City (1881-1883). Turning away from works like the Paris Opéra, Peck and his architects perhaps sought to emulate ideas of other European theaters of the period, such as Bayreuth's Festspielhaus (1872-1876). Sullivan's interior had an ornamental and iconographic program that was innovative relative to traditional opera houses. His design of the building's exterior was in a Romanesque style that recalled ancient Roman monuments. It is here compared with other Chicago buildings of its era that represented high capital's reaction to workers' culture, such as Burnham and Root's First Regiment Armory (1889-1891), Peck's own house (1887), and the Chicago Athenaeum (1890-1891). The Auditorium's story invites a view of the Chicago School that emphasizes the role of patrons' ideological agenda rather than modern structural expression.

THE MAKING OF A PHYSICIAN

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-268
Author(s):  
C. P. Darby
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
State University ◽  
University Of South Carolina ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Optimal Functioning ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Medical University

We must be aware that freedom from organic disease alone can not be our goal. The optimal functioning of the individual must be our aim, and that it occur in an environment conducive to a fuller life. We must be aware that man does not live by bread alone, nor by his antihypertensive pill alone. We must be citizens of the community, helping to make it a better place for the raising of our children, for a fuller educational opportunity, for the development of the arts and other cultural aspects which help raise man above the level of animal life. Thus, the making of a doctor almost begins at his mother's knee. Nurtured further by society and its educational and Cultural institutions, he is finally given a privilege by society, to act in a responsible way in furthering the health, both physical and mental, of those he calls his patients. (Delivered to medical students and faculty, School of Medicine, University of South Dakota, May 1976 by Mitchell I. Rubin, MD, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Consultant in Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina).

THE TEN-STATE NUTRITION SURVEY: A PEDIATRIC PERSPECTIVE

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 1095-1099
Author(s):  
Charles U. Lowe ◽  
Gilbert B. Forbes ◽  
Stanley Garn ◽  
George M. Owen ◽  
Nathan J. Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Food Utilization ◽  
Nutrition Survey ◽  
Dietary Recall ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
The Individual

In 1967 the 90th Congress of the United States attached an amendment to the Partnership for Health Act requiring the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to undertake a survey of "the incidence and location of serious hunger and malnutrition–in the United States." In response to the legislative mandate the Ten-State Nutrition Survey was conducted during the years 1968 through 1970. The sample was selected from urban and rural families living in the following ten states: New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, California, Washington, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina. The families selected were those living in some of the census enumeration districts that made up the lowest economic quartiles of their respective states at the time of the 1960 census. During the eight years after the 1960 census the social and economic characteristics found in some of the individual enumeration districts had changed, so that there was a significant numer of families in the surveys with incomes well above the lowest income quartile. Thus, it was possible in analyzing results to make some comparisons on an economic basis. Thirty thousand families were identified in the selection process; 23,846 of these participated in the survey. Data regarding more than 80,000 individuals were obtained through interviews and 40,847 of these individuals were examined. The survey included the following: extensive demographic information on each of the participating families; information regarding food utilization of the family; a 24-hour dietary recall for infants up to 36 months of age, children 10 to 16 years of age, pregnant and lactating women, and individuals over 60 years of age.

Abstract 216: Left Ventricular Enlargement and Heart Failure Events: Is Bigger Better?

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farbod Raiszadeh ◽  
Neeraja Yedlapati ◽  
Ileana L Piña ◽  
Daniel M Spevack
Keyword(s):  
Heart Failure ◽  
New York ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Systolic Heart Failure ◽  
Heart Association ◽  
Left Ventricular ◽  
Left Ventricular Volumes ◽  
End Diastolic Volume ◽  
New York Heart Association ◽  
The Individual

Background: Since stroke volume (SV) is a function of ejection fraction (EF) and end-diastolic volume (EDV) (SV = EF x EDV), we hypothesized that increased EDV may be advantageous in systolic heart failure (HF), allowing the left ventricle to supply increased cardiac output. Methods: Echocardiograms from 968 consecutive patients seen in our hospital’s HF clinic were reviewed. Left ventricular volumes were measured both at end systole and end diastole using the bi-plane Simpson’s method and were indexed to body surface area. EF was calculated using (EDV-ESV)/EDV. Dates of subsequent HF events (death or admission for HF exacerbation) were obtained from our database. Results: Systolic HF (EF < 50%) was found in 649 of the study subjects. Increased SV index was associated with increased EDV index. The strength of this association varied with EF, Figure. In a bivariate Cox regression model, lower SV index and higher EDV index were each independent predictors of HF events. Increase in EDV by 50 cc was associated with a 20% increase in HF events, p<0.001. Decrease in SVI by 5 cc was associated with 5% increase in HF events, p<0.001. These associations were limited to those with systolic HF. The associations between both EDVI and SVI and HF events were not confounded by patient age, sex and New York Heart Association Class. Conclusion: Increased EDV index was independently associated with increased HF events, indicating that LV enlargement in HF is not favorable. These findings underscore the individual contributions of the components of EF (SV and EDV) in predicting HF outcomes.

Febrile Convulsions, by J. Gordon Millichap, M.D., M.R.C.P. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968, 239 pp., $7.95

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-382
Author(s):  
Randolph K. Byers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Febrile Seizures ◽  
Cerebral Injury ◽  
Extensive Review ◽  
Cerebral Disease ◽  
Febrile Convulsions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Made In

This rather modest-looking monograph deals not only with the large experiences of the author in relation to febrile seizures, but also presents an extensive review of the modern relevant literature (266 references in the bibliography). The most useful point made in the book, it seems to me, is that febrile convulsions are just that: i.e., convulsions coinciding with fever, the result of illness not directly involving the brain or its meninges. Such a seizure may be an isolated occurrence in the life of the individual, or it may recur a few times with fever; it may be the first sign of idiopathic chronic epilepsy, or it may be evidence of more or less apparent cerebral injury of a static sort; or, it may be the presenting symptom heralding progressive cerebral disease.

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