"Taken by the Devil"
The Censorship of Frank Wedekind and Alban Berg's Lulu
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:15th Nov '19
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Censorship had an extraordinary impact on Alban Berg's operaLulu, composed by the Austrian during the politically tumultuous years spanning 1929 to 1935. Based on plays by Frank Wedekind that were repeatedly banned from being published and performed from1894 until the end of World War I, the libretto was in turn censored by Berg himself when he characterized it as a morality play after submitting it to authorities in Nazi Germany in 1934. After Berg died the next year, the third act was censored by his widow, Helene, and his former teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. In "Taken by the Devil", author Margaret Notley uncovers the unusual and uniquely generative role of censorship throughout the lifecycle of Berg's great opera. Placing the opera and its source material in wider cultural contexts, Notley provides close readings of the opera's libretto and score to reveal techniques employed by the composer and by Wedekind before him in negotiating censorship. She also explores ways in which Berg chose to augment discrepancies between the plays rather than flatten them as in certain performances of the plays during the 1920s, adding further dimensions of interpretation to the work. Elegantly readable,"Taken by the Devil"is one of the most meticulously researched and nuanced studies of Lulu to date, and illuminates the process of politically-driven censorship of theater, music, and the arts during the tumultuous early twentieth century.
Margaret Notley's new study is a deep and detailed exploration of the political, editorial, and critical environment surrounding Wedekind's controversial dramas that Alban Berg so skillfully forged into the libretto for his powerful but enigmatic opera Lulu. Notley's results revealed here profoundly fortify our musical understanding of one of the finest operas of the past century. * Mark DeVoto, Professor Emeritus of Music, Tufts University *
With this new book Margaret Notley examines the consequences of censorship in the creative process and reception of Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora and Alban Berg's opera Lulu. In an engaging account, Notley opens new avenues for interpretation of elements that had hitherto been deemed incongruous in both the plays and the opera. Beyond Berg scholarship, this book is a must read for anyone interested in intersections between music and politics. * Silvio J. dos Santos, author of Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's Lulu *
Although there can be few operas that so openly bear the scars of censorship as Lulu, this aspect has all too often been neglected by musicologists. Margaret Notley's extensive and detailed investigation of the subject fills a gaping hole in Lulustudies and will be invaluable for Wedekind and Berg scholars alike. * Nick Chadwick, author of articles on Berg, and translator of Hermann Watznauer's biography of Berg in Alban Berg and His World(2010) *
ISBN: 9780190069865
Dimensions: 155mm x 239mm x 28mm
Weight: 612g
300 pages