Certain Dramaturgical and Compositional Peculiarities of the Early Operas of Philip Glass
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Abstract
The article is devoted to the question of the revival of the opera genre in the musical legacy of Philip Glass. This
process came to view in American musical theater in the late 1970s and 1980s and was conducive to the revival of
what was deemed to be by the standards of that time period the most conservative genre in the musical output of
American and Western European composers. The reform of the operatic genre, which subsequently transformed the
perception of the very essence of the musical-theatrical performance as an artistic phenomenon, was carried out under
the direct influence of the aesthetical ideas of theatrical experimentalism, musical minimalism and conceptualism.
The article examines the dramaturgical and compositional problems connected with the implementation into opera of
principles connected with a new form of perception formed in the European avant-garde and American experimental
theater. Glass’ early compositions – the operas “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha” and “Akhnaten,” which the
composer combined into a trilogy, manifest in a consistent way the ideas of revival of operatic performance. The
research identifies the traditions of the “Theater of Cruelty,” the “Epic Theater” and the “Theater of the Absurd”
(Antonin Artaud, Bertold Brecht, Samuel Beckett), which have exerted influence on the composer’s musical-theatrical
thinking, define the peculiarities of manifestation of the principles of non-linear dramaturgy, characterizes the methods
of construction of meaning, and examines the means for compositional organization founding themselves on the
innovations of Philip Glass’ musical language developed in his instrumental music.
The publication has been prepared as part of project № 17-04-00198-OGN supported by the Russian Foundation
for Basic Research.
Keywords: American musical theater, the early operas of Philip Glass, “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha,”
“Akhnaten,” revival of the opera genre.
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