Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American ModernismRandom House Publishing Group, 5 set 2012 - 400 pagine Perhaps the oddest and most influential collaboration in the history of American modernism was hatched in 1926, when a young Virgil Thomson knocked on Gertrude Stein's door in Paris. Eight years later, their opera Four Saints in Three Acts became a sensation--the longest-running opera in Broadway history to date and the most widely reported cultural event of its time. Four Saints was proclaimed the birth of a new art form, a cellophane fantasy, "cubism on stage." It swept the public imagination, inspiring new art and new language, and defied every convention of what an opera should be. Everything about it was revolution-ary: Stein's abstract text and Thomson's homespun music, the all-black cast, the costumes, and the com-bustible sets. Moving from the Wadsworth Atheneum to Broadway, Four Saints was the first popular modernist production. It brought modernism, with all its flamboyant outrage against convention, into the mainstream. This is the story of how that opera came to be. It involves artists, writers, musicians, salon hostesses, and an underwear manufacturer with an appetite for publicity. The opera's success depended on a handful of Harvard-trained men who shaped America's first museums of modern art. The elaborately intertwined lives of the collaborators provide a window onto the pioneering generation that defined modern taste in America in the 1920s and 1930s. A brilliant cultural historian with a talent for bringing the past to life, Steven Watson spent ten years researching and writing this book, interviewing many of the collaborators and performers. Prepare for Saints is the first book to describe this pivotal moment in American cultural history. It does so with a spirit and irreverence worthy of its subject. NOTE: This edition does not include photographs. |
Sommario
Young Harvard Moderns | |
A Personal Break a Commercial | |
The Harvard | |
The World of the Stettheimers | |
High Bohemia and Modernism | |
Modernism Goes Uptown | |
Negotiations and Exchanges | |
Summer 1933 | |
Not the Usual Suspects | |
Rehearsals in Harlem | |
Opening Night | |
Four Saints Goes to Broadway | |
Aftermath | |
Dedication | |
Altre edizioni - Visualizza tutto
Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of ... Steven Watson Anteprima limitata - 2000 |
Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of ... Steven Watson Anteprima limitata - 2000 |
Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of ... Steven Watson Visualizzazione estratti - 1998 |
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Alfred Barr American Antheil artists audience author’s interviews Autobiography avant-garde Avery Balanchine ballet Barr’s became Broadway called Carl Van Vechten cast cellophane Chick Austin choreographer collaboration composing costumes critic culture dance dancers December described Ettie Eva Jessye exhibition February Florine Stettheimer Florine’s Four Saints Frederick Ashton friends gallery George Gertrude and Alice Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Collection Gertrude’s guests Harlem Hartford Harvard modernists Henry McBride Henry McBride Collection Henry-Russell Hitchcock homosexual Hound & Horn Hugnet John Houseman Julien Levy Kirk Askew later Lincoln Kirstein living Maurice Grosser Max Ewing Modern Art Museum of Modern Negro never opera paintings Paris performance Philip Johnson piano Picasso played production published recalled rehearsals rue de Fleurus Saint Teresa Saints in Three salon singers singing society stage Stein Collection stylish theater Thomson to Stein Thomson wrote Three Acts Toklas Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson Collection Wadsworth Atheneum words writing York York’s