Modernism and the Cult of Mountains: Music, Opera, Cinema

In this study opera serves as a nexus, shedding light on the circulation of ideas about politics, nature, technology, and aesthetics. Morris investigates operatic representations of the mountains in German modernism, showing how the liminal quality of the landscape forms the backdrop for opera's reflexive engagement with the identity and limits of its constituent media. This operatic reflexivity invites consideration of musical encounters with mountains in other genres, and Morris shows how these issues resonate in Strauss's Alpine Symphony and in the Bergfilm. By using music and the ideology of mountains to illuminate aspects of each other, Morris makes an original and valuable contribution to the critical study of modernism.

Author: Christopher Morris
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 10/26/2012
Pages: 220
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.56d
ISBN: 9780754669708

About the Author
Dr Christopher Morris is Lecturer in Music at University College Cork and teaches in the university's interdisciplinary programmes in film studies and digital arts. He has published widely on opera, new media and film music, including Reading Opera Between the Lines (2002). Current research projects include a critical analysis of opera on video and an investigation of contemporary staging practices in opera.