Abstracts
Résumé
La création de Dance in Place Congo (1918) du compositeur américain Henry F. Gilbert par la compagnie de danse en résidence et l’orchestre du Metropolitan Opera a été la première production sur un thème africano-américain à être présentée dans l’enceinte du Metropolitan Opera. Il s’agit aussi de la toute première prestation de musiques vernaculaires noires et de la première présence d’artistes de couleur sur la scène légendaire du Met. Le résultat, cependant, est davantage un reflet des rivalités entre compositeur, chorégraphe et gestionnaires, et d’un choc de visions artistiques en réponse à une esthétique moderniste émergente en musique, danse et scénographie.
Abstract
The world premiere of American composer Henry F. Gilbert’s The Dance in Place Congo by the resident ballet company and orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera in 1918 was the first production on an African American theme given at the house. It also represented the first hearing of vernacular musical materials and the first appearance of performers of color on its legendary stage. Yet the creative results reflected competing visions among composer, choreographer, and management, as well as a collision among artistic responses to an emerging modernist aesthetic in music, dance, and stage design.
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Appendices
Note biographique
Carolyn Guzski is assistant professor of musicology at the State University of New York, College at Buffalo. Recent publications include contributions to The Grove Dictionary of American Music (2d ed.) and the Bard Music Festival Series anthology Saint-Saëns and His World (Princeton University Press). She received the Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where her dissertation on American opera at the Metropolitan was a winner of the Barry S. Brook Award, and holds degrees in performance from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and The Juilliard School.
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