Journal article

Publication year: 2008

Pages: 239-249

Journal: Contemporary Music Review

Volume number: 27

Issue number: 2-3

ISSN: 0749-4467

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/07494460801951330

Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group

Abstract: 
This article is a study of the musical and literary sources of Stefan Wolpe's chamber operas Schone Geschichten and Zeus und Elida. Wolpe composed his musical theater pieces at the high point of the cultivation of a mixture of genres. Zeus und Elida does not adapt the mythological story, but rather, as 'a musical grotesque' (the subtitle) takes it into the present day with a novel socio-political interpretation that has links with Ruttmann's film Berlin, die Symphonie einer Grossstadt. Jazz in Zeus und Elida, unlike Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, is not merely decorative, but rather functions as the stylistic basis for a critique of society that transcends mere topical entertainment. The style of Schone Geschichten is more uncompromising, with occasional uses of twelve-tone processes. The material, capable of multiple combinations, is gained from the concatenation, inversion or permutation of specific interval groupings.

Harvard Citation style: Phleps, T. (2008) Schone Geschichten and Zeus und Elida: Wolpe's Chamber Operas, Contemporary Music Review, 27(2-3), pp. 239-249. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494460801951330

APA Citation style: Phleps, T. (2008). Schone Geschichten and Zeus und Elida: Wolpe's Chamber Operas. Contemporary Music Review. 27(2-3), 239-249. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494460801951330