Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Notes to the Reader
- List of Abbreviations
- Timeline of Modern Czech History
- 1 Introduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague
- 2 Smetana, Hostinský, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900–1918)
- 4 “Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer”: Czech Opera in the Fin de Siècle
- 5 The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
- 6 Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphony: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic
- 7 “A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?”: Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925–30)
- 8 “I Have Rent My Soul in Two”: Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s
- 9 Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
- 10 “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
- 11 The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context
- Appendix One Personalia
- Appendix Two Premieres and New Productions at the National Theater, 1900–1938
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Notes to the Reader
- List of Abbreviations
- Timeline of Modern Czech History
- 1 Introduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague
- 2 Smetana, Hostinský, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900–1918)
- 4 “Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer”: Czech Opera in the Fin de Siècle
- 5 The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
- 6 Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphony: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic
- 7 “A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?”: Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925–30)
- 8 “I Have Rent My Soul in Two”: Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s
- 9 Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
- 10 “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
- 11 The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context
- Appendix One Personalia
- Appendix Two Premieres and New Productions at the National Theater, 1900–1938
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The division of the young Czech avant-garde of the 1930s produced two camps, both aiming to resolve the question of how best to recapture an audience alienated by modernism. Any opera composers of this generation would be daunted by the task of presenting their work before an audience that no longer considered opera a principal form of entertainment, or one that reflected their identity in the modern world. Each of the two compositional factions in Prague, however, faced a further uphill battle, in that neither of their aesthetic programs, in its purest form, was well suited to the traditional conventions of opera. For Hába and the postexpressionists, eager to use socialist themes to educate the audience, stage plays set to music were, in theory, an ideal way to capture the attention of large cross-sections of society, but their uncompromising, new musical vocabulary was not conducive to musico-dramatic narrative and pace without making significant concessions to tradition. Hába's quarter-tone opera Matka (The Mother) became the subject of discussion among Prague critics, but found an audience only in the more open-minded atmosphere of Munich in 1931. On the other side, Krejčí and the neoclassicists shied away from full-scale opera as a genre because this same issue of musico-dramatic narrative conflicted with their ideology that pure rhythm and sound should affect the listener directly through absolute forms, without the assistance of a program.
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- Information
- Opera and Ideology in PraguePolemics and Practice at the National Theater, 1900–1938, pp. 300 - 325Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006