תצוגת צוות: Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture

Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture

This article explores Gian Carlo Menotti’s purposeful creation of a critical flop as an ethical stance against trends in mid-century American music. Menotti enjoyed popularity until shortly before the premiere of his comedic opera The Last Savage (1963), championing an approach to music and drama ac...

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הוצא לאור ב:	URI:https://journals.openedition.org/transposition,
מחבר ראשי:	Dretel, Cynthia Lisa
פורמט:	Article ou chapitre numérique
שפה:	Anglais
יצא לאור:	Transposition 2022
נושאים:	American opera; politics; Cold War; Menotti; music criticism
גישה מקוונת:	Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM

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spelling	openedition-oai:revues.org:transposition_7420 https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.7420 urn:doi:10.4000/transposition.7420 en https://journals.openedition.org/transposition/7420 2022-06-30T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/lmdt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture Transposition Éditions de l’EHESS info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2110-6134 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/transposition Dretel, Cynthia Lisa American opera; politics; Cold War; Menotti; music criticism This article explores Gian Carlo Menotti’s purposeful creation of a critical flop as an ethical stance against trends in mid-century American music. Menotti enjoyed popularity until shortly before the premiere of his comedic opera The Last Savage (1963), championing an approach to music and drama accessible to the general public. This opera baited the critics by consciously defying modern aesthetics, emulating Mozart’s subtle subversion of the nobility’s authority in Le nozze di Figaro. Menotti paralleled the Faustian motif of scientific discovery at the expense of society – a theme prevalent in contemporary science plays – with the rise of post-tonal music and its inaccessibility to general audiences. The eclectic score borrowed and subverted musical conventions to introduce the audience to each period of classical music and demonstrate that the elevation of post-tonal music arose from the desire to push boundaries in science. Contextualizing this opera with the science play canon reveals that the changing portrayals of scientists and technocratic elites in Cold War American media partially led to politically biased critical reception. At the height of the Space Race, scientists and artists were cultural heroes for broad swathes of the American public, as they were vital to national goals and cultural diplomacy efforts. Menotti’s application of Mozart’s comic opera tropes to satirize the upper class – in this case, an elite category representing highly educated scientists and artists – backfired. Cet article examine le déclenchement d’un flop critique, prémédité par Gian Carlo Menotti lui-même et conçu par lui comme une position éthique contre les tendances à l’œuvre dans la musique américaine du milieu du siècle. Défendant une approche de la musique et du théâtre accessible au grand public, Menotti a joui d’une grande popularité qui a commencé à s’étioler peu de temps avant la première de son opéra-comique The Last Savage (1963). Cet opéra provoque les critiques en défiant consciemment l’esthétique moderne, imitant la subtile subversion de l’autorité de la noblesse opérée par Mozart dans Le Nozze di Figaro. Menotti a mis en parallèle le motif faustien de la découverte scientifique au détriment de la société – un thème récurrent dans le théâtre scientifique contemporain – avec l’essor de la musique post-tonale et son inaccessibilité au grand public. La partition éclectique emprunte et subvertit les conventions musicales pour faire découvrir au public chaque période de la musique classique, et démontrer que l’ascension de la musique post-tonale est liée au désir de repousser les limites de la science. La mise en contexte de cet opéra dans le canon des pièces de théâtre scientifique révèle que l’évolution de la représentation des scientifiques et des élites technocratiques dans les médias américains de la Guerre froide a partiellement conduit à une réception critique politiquement biaisée. Au plus fort de la course à l’espace, les scientifiques et les artistes étaient des héros culturels pour de larges pans du public américain, car ils étaient essentiels aux objectifs nationaux et aux efforts de diplomatie culturelle. L’application par Menotti des tropes de l’opéra-comique de Mozart pour brosser la satire de la classe supérieure – en l’occurrence, une catégorie d’élite représentant les scientifiques et les artistes hautement qualifiés – s’est retournée contre lui.
collection	OpenEdition Journal
language	Anglais
format	Article ou chapitre numérique
building	0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/
topic	American opera; politics; Cold War; Menotti; music criticism
spellingShingle	American opera; politics; Cold War; Menotti; music criticism Dretel, Cynthia Lisa Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture
description	This article explores Gian Carlo Menotti’s purposeful creation of a critical flop as an ethical stance against trends in mid-century American music. Menotti enjoyed popularity until shortly before the premiere of his comedic opera The Last Savage (1963), championing an approach to music and drama accessible to the general public. This opera baited the critics by consciously defying modern aesthetics, emulating Mozart’s subtle subversion of the nobility’s authority in Le nozze di Figaro. Menotti paralleled the Faustian motif of scientific discovery at the expense of society – a theme prevalent in contemporary science plays – with the rise of post-tonal music and its inaccessibility to general audiences. The eclectic score borrowed and subverted musical conventions to introduce the audience to each period of classical music and demonstrate that the elevation of post-tonal music arose from the desire to push boundaries in science. Contextualizing this opera with the science play canon reveals that the changing portrayals of scientists and technocratic elites in Cold War American media partially led to politically biased critical reception. At the height of the Space Race, scientists and artists were cultural heroes for broad swathes of the American public, as they were vital to national goals and cultural diplomacy efforts. Menotti’s application of Mozart’s comic opera tropes to satirize the upper class – in this case, an elite category representing highly educated scientists and artists – backfired.
author	Dretel, Cynthia Lisa
author_facet	Dretel, Cynthia Lisa
author_sort	Dretel, Cynthia Lisa
title	Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture
title_short	Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture
title_full	Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture
title_fullStr	Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture
title_full_unstemmed	Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture
title_sort	gian carlo menotti’s the last savage: opera, science, and relevance in cold war american culture
publisher	Transposition
publishDate	2022
container_title	URI:https://journals.openedition.org/transposition
url	https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.7420 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/transposition/7420
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Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Last Savage: Opera, Science, and Relevance in Cold War American Culture

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