From: Tako Oda
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Subject: RE: 20th century music
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

> From: WaDiJeDo-at-aol.com
>
> I need help! i am looking to do a paper on 20 century music, and since i am a
> singer i think i would like to do it on vocal music, maybe an opera. But
> because I am not an opera buff, I don't know which will give me the best for
> my money, any suggestions?

Well, there's modernism and post-modernism that you'll need to think
about. In my opinion, the ultimate modernist opera is Die Gluckliche
Hand (sorry, can't do umlauts) by Schoenberg. Very rich material,
because it takes into account every aspect of operatic presentation -
typical of modernism. It's also totally angst-ridden! Also not terribly
well-known.

Something else going on at the beginning of the century was
neo-classicism - Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress is a good bet there.
Schoenberg and Stravinsky did not get along.

If you're doing post-modernism, it's more of an open field. By
definition, it's a mixed bag.

Tako Oda
Graduate Student in Composition
Mills College Music Department
http://www.mills.edu/PEOPLE/gr.pages/toda.public.html/music/singer.html