scholarly journals American Christians for and against Parsifal: Debating the Holy Grail Opera in New York

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Hale
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opera House

The appropriateness of Christian themes in the performing arts has often been debated. Defenders have argued that various media, including drama, can serve as instruments of spiritual edification, while critics have contended that such efforts often eventuate in sacrilege and a vulgarising exploitation of the sacred for commercial and entertainment purposes. A heated debate took place in 1903 when Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal, which since its première at Bayreuth in 1882 had been hailed as a magnificent representation of redemption and other themes central to Christianity, was staged at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York – its first performance as an opera outside its original venue. Numerous clergymen and lay people in several denominations sought to have the production banned and cautioned fellow Christians against seeing it. Others, generally of a theologically more liberal bent, defended the work. The heated public controversy is placed into historical context and compared with the history of Parsifal in the United Kingdom, where it was widely appreciated without noteworthy opposition.

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.

A History of Failures and Miscalculations? Britain's Relationship to the European Communities in the Postwar Era (1945–1973)

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-232
Author(s):  
GABRIELE CLEMENS
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Integration ◽  
European Community ◽  
National Strategy ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of

Alan S. Milward, The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy 1945–1963 (The United Kingdom and The European Community, Vol. I) (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002), 512 pp., £65.00 (hb), ISBN 0-7146-5111-7.Alex May, ed., Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe: The Commonwealth and Britain's Applications to Join the European Communities (Houndsmill and New York: Palgrave, 2001), 188 pp., £55.00 (hb), ISBN 0-333-80013-3.Oliver J. Daddow, ed., Harold Wilson and European Integration. Britain's Second Application to Join the EEC (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2003), 298 pp., £45.00 (hb), ISBN 0-7146-5222-9, £17.50 (pb), ISBN 0-7146-8207-1.Sir Con O'Neill, Britain's Entry into the European Community. Report by Sir Con O'Neill on the Negotiations of 1970–1972, ed. and with a foreword by Sir David Hannay (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2000), 464 pp., £55.00 (hb), ISBN 0-7146-5117-6.

A New Opera House

Samuel Barber ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 470-503
Author(s):  
Barbara B. Heyman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Antony And Cleopatra ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opera House ◽  
Lincoln Center ◽  
Franco Zeffirelli ◽  
Technical Failures ◽  
Critical Reviews

The commission that was one of the greatest tributes to Barber’s career turned out to be his nemesis. Antony and Cleopatra, written for the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in New York, was handicapped by the inflated Franco Zeffirelli production, with its problematic paraphernalia, including camels and goats and a malfunctioning pyramid, which eclipsed serious evaluation of the music. This chapter narrates how the opera based on Barber’s favorite Shakespeare play came to life, how he handpicked the major characters ̶—Leontyne Price for Cleopatra and Justino Díaz for Antony ̶—and how these artists devoted themselves to the literature and history of their roles. Although Barber’s work here was no less brilliant, the critics felt that the failure of the opera was due to overproduction, with an infusion of mechanical and technical failures. After the premiere, Barber boarded the SS Constitution for Europe. Over the next decade, he devoted his energies intermittently toward a revision of the opera in collaboration with Menotti. In 1975, four performances of the more intimate version with increased lyric meditation were presented at the Juilliard School. Critical reviews of a production at the Spoleto Festival in Italy after Barber died gave much attention to the musical strengths of the opera, with uniform appreciation of Barber as a master of orchestra and choral writing. Performances followed in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia.

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