Full Description
The first book about Elliott Carter's only opera--or indeed about any single work by this still-productive modern master.
In 1997, the eminent American composer Elliott Carter teamed with British music critic/librettist Paul Griffiths to create the one-act opera What Next? Hailed by the New York Times as "theatrically dynamic" and "poignant," the opera explores how six people work together to emerge from the wreckage of an accident. Today, What Next? enjoys a prominent position in Carter's celebrated "late late" compositional period.
In the firstbook to focus exclusively on one Carter composition, Guy Capuzzo uses the metaphors of communication, cooperation, and separation to trace the dramatic arc of What Next? Through an approach that places stage action, words,and music on equal footing, Capuzzo's readings of four excerpts from the opera reveal the inner workings of Carter and Griffiths's tragicomedy.
Elliott Carter's "What Next?": Communication, Cooperation, and Separation sheds light on a significant work by a major figure in twentieth-century concert music and will be of interest to all who study American music, vocal music, and musical criticism.
Guy Capuzzo is associate professor of music theory at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro.
Contents
Introduction
Preliminaries
An Analytic Approach to What Next?
Identity Formation in Episodes 1-2
Communication and Irony in the Explanation Episodes
Cooperation and Confusion in the Hope Episodes
Communication and Gender Breakdown in Episodes 37-38
Appendix: Libretto Excerpts
Notes
Bibliography
Index
