Word: gesamtkunstwerke
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...latter-day Wagner gallantly reaching for the 20th century's Gesamtkunstwerk (all-embracing work of art). But he fell far short. Given the present-day disinclination of opera houses to produce untried, experimental and expensive new works, as well as a changing musical aesthetic that now looks upon serialism merely as a compositional tool and not an end in itself, it is unlikely that Die Soldaten will spawn any successors. -By Michael Walsh
...York's Metropolitan Opera. Although such an intimate drama could well be lost in those huge houses, it is clear that the ailing master of English opera has fused moral theme with artistic creation into what Thomas Mann himself might have hailed as Britten's Gesamtkunstwerk. *Lawrence Malkin
IRWIN BAZELON New York City Sir: A delightful story about an amazing man. But in an apparent burst of Gesamtkunstwerk the cover artist not only turned Mr. Sing's parchment-over-steel face into pastry lumped over oboe; he brocaded him into the background. Holy Schlock...
...Gesamtkunstwerk. Fortunately for the Met, and for the state of opera everywhere, there is very little else that Rudolph Bing has got wrong. For 16 years he has stood in the dead center of a musical vortex and managed to conduct both himself and opera with admirable skill. Dragging opera by the scruff of the neck into modern times, demanding improvements in production techniques and performance quality, Bing has helped the art to achieve the Wagnerian ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk, the amalgamation of drama, singing, acting and dancing into total theater...