Opera's Second Death

[The Great Quail]

>"Operas are about the meaning of love and life, and
>also very much about the meaning of death. Opera as a
>form, however, might even be dead itself. The last
>great operas are said to be those written around 1900."

Oh, hogwash. Opera as a musical form has changed along with classical 
music itself, and this century is filled with "great operas," 
including those by Strauss and the late Puccini, Schoenberg's "Moses 
und Aron," Alban Berg's two masterworks "Wozzeck" and "Lulu," 
Shostakovich's brilliant "Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk," Prokoviev's 
"Three Oranges" and "Fiery Angel," Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle," 
Benjamin Britten's numerous works, Messaien's "St. Francis of 
Assisi," Philip Glass' "Satyagraha," "Akhnaten," and "White Raven" 
(just to name three gems among many great operas penned by Glass), 
John Adams' "Nixon in China".... And there's always lesser-heard 
works by Gian Carlo Menotti, Jack Beeson, Virgil Thomson, William 
Bolcolm, John Corligiano, Daniel Catan.... Not to mention exciting 
new avant garde works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Gyorgi Ligeti, 
Louis Andriessen, Steve Reich, Heinz Holliger, Peter Eotvos, Thomas 
Ades....

It sounds more to me that the authors are stuck in the Italian/Wagner 
Romantic mode, and are lamenting nothing more than the death of the 
sort of accessible music they can relate to easily. It's like someone 
claiming that there were no "great novels" written after Dickens.

--Quail