Keele Research Repository

Williams, AJ (2017) Genres and Theatres: Wolfgang Rihm's Opera-Fantasy Dionysos. Contemporary Music Review, 36 (4). pp. 279-310.

Text Dionysos article symplectic.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only until 5 June 2019. Download (2MB)

Abstract

Wolfgang Rihm’s Dionysos: Szenen und Dithyramben—eine Opernphantasie received its world premiere in 2010. Based on Nietzsche’s poetry collection Dithyrambs of Dionysus, the libretto combines elements of Nietzsche’s biography with mythology relating to Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, who was so pivotal to the philosopher’s thinking. The opera also mixes historical allusions, to Wagner, for example, with reworked pre-existing music by Rihm. Dionysos extends beyond traditional operatic drama by the deployment of a number of genres and processes, including ritual theatre, symphonic transformation, expressionism, the Lied, the chorale and the aria. In doing so, the opera articulates the dual strands of individual feeling and collective emotion that have been such defining features of modernism.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Taylor & Francis at https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2017.1399670 Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Rihm, Dionysos, Opera, Nietzsche, Modernism, Genre
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Humanities
Depositing User:	Symplectic
Date Deposited:	06 Nov 2017 09:28
Last Modified:	18 Jun 2018 10:34
URI:	http://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/4171

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