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Matthias Nikolaidis : Die Weihe der Republik
The Consecration of the Republic: Alberic Magnard's
GuerCrEur (1901)
Matthias Nikolaidis
M.A., Musicology, Freie Universitat Berlin;
Ph. D., Musicology, Freie Universitat Berlin
Abstract: Alb6ric Magnard's Guercceur, composed between 1897 and
1901 on a libretto by the composer and proudly called »Trag6die en
musique«, constitutes one of the most idiosyncratic manifestations of the
musico-dramatic production during the French fill de siecle. In this work,
Magnard, innovator and conservative at the same time, combined
structures reminiscent of the choral polyphony of Renaissance music
with the Wagnerian leitmotiv technique. Magnard's impressive control of
the relationship between poetry and music is, at least in Act I and Ill,
accompanied by a relative absence of action on stage. Beyond this, the
highly symbolic and sacral subject matter of these acts cannot deny the
influence of Wagner's »BUhnenweihfestspiel« Parsifal (1882). Both
works represent the process of gnosis and initiation of an initially naive
hero who only through the experience of suffering becomes able to
recognize the message of the sacred.
Thanks to his concentration on the protagonist of his opera, Magnard
has been able to confer a high degree of plasticity to this
musico-dramatic »Bildungsroman«; although the composer succeeded in
emulating many structures of Wagner's work, his opera also mirrors the
struggle of a much younger artist with the traditional values that Wagner
had incorporated into his late Parsifal. The portrait of human
imperfection, which has to precede Redemption in his sacralized musical
theatre, turns out even more vigorous than in the case of Wagner's
Parsifal character. Moreover Magnard added political overtones to the
genre of sacred music drama, showing the republican ideals of the
politician Guercceur - which mirror the composer's own ideals - in the
utopian vision of the opera's final scene. Thus the musico-dramatic
conception of Guercceur adheres to the tradition of 19th-century political
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opera which had been established in the wake of the French
Revolution - and in opposition to which Wagner had created his
concept of »music drama« based on mythology.
Key Terms: Alberic Magnard, GuercCEur, Richard Wagner, Parsifal,
Buhnenweibfestspiel
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