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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 TAO -105- 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 TAO -106-