Word: wagnerism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...than anything built above ground. It has the same kind of weird beauty as the basement of Antoni Gaudi's Palau Guell. Here and there the lights pick up sparkles of quartz and waste opal crumbs embedded in the stone. You could imagine it as a set for a Wagner opera; you half expect to see Alberich and his dwarfs...
James A. Gross, a colleague of Clete's at SILS who recently wrote a four-volume history chronicling labor relationships stemming from the 1935 Wagner Act, says the issue is larger than if Harvard is merely playing within the legal boundaries...
Directed by visiting artist Diane Paulus of the Project 400 Theater Group, a New York-based theater company whose stated mission is to redefine what people think theater is, King Kong is a show that is as challenging as it is engaging. Loosely based on Richard Wagner's 1848 opera Lohengrin, which in turn was based on a German version of an Arthurian legend, Paulus's multimedia production tells the story of the virtuous knight Lohengrin and his efforts to save and marry Elsa, a princess unjustly accused of murder...
...actual content of the opera is secondary at best. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of King Kong is that it is able to take this emphasis on theatrical experience over story-line--the essence of opera--and make it relevant to audiences today. (The type that wouldn't enjoy Wagner's original score, at least...
Because they are so focused on creating a full experience, all operas must represent some sort of aesthetic principle--the playfulness and humor of the early Mozart, the heaviness of Wagner. More than with a play or musical, all the elements of a well-done--opera music, costumes, lights, scenery--should resonate with a single effect. The aesthetic of King Kong is one of decontextualization and deconstruction, of presenting the familiar as unfamiliar...