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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Theatre, drama > Opera
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Prepare for Saints - Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism (Paperback, 1st pbk. ed)
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Prepare for Saints - Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism (Paperback, 1st pbk. ed)
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A somewhat lite but always engaging account of the modernist
movement's development in America, as seen through the prism of a
great American opera. Modernism first arrived in the US via the
highly influential and controversial Armory show of 1913, but
didn't gain mainstream appeal until the late 1920s and early 1930s
- when it was picked up and promoted by a group of young Harvard
graduates who styled themselves "The Friends" or "The Family."
Including the architect Philip Johnson, museum curator Chick
Austin, and balletomane Lincoln Kirstein, "The Family" consisted of
a brotherhood of wealthy, well-connected, largely homosexual boy
geniuses whose support and patronage of fellow alum Virgil Thomson
led to the 1933 staging of his opera Four Saints in Three Acts on
Broadway. Watson (The Birth of the Beat Generation, 1995, etc.)
argues that Four Saints helped to foster mass American acceptance
of modernist modalities. Certainly, the opera brought together a
glittering assemblage of collaborators. Gertrude Stein wrote the
lyrics, Frederick Ashton choreographed, John Houseman directed, and
Florine Stettheimer created the set and costumes. Watson provides
brief biographies of all concerned. But he focuses on the
tumultuous relationship of Stein and Thomson. She was 22 years
older, prickly, less famous than she wished to be, while Thomson
was a promising unknown. Even with his powerful allies, it took
nearly six years to get the opera produced. The ruptures and
reconciliations with Stein made things even more difficult. The
opera is rarely revived today, but the beauty of its staging, the
novelty of its all-black cast, and its general newness made it a
landmark when it opened. Despite the opera's success and its
influence, Thomson and Stein only collaborated once more (on the
lesser-known The Mother of Us All). The occasional shallows of his
wide-ranging account are surpassed by the depth of Watson's
presentation of a pivotal cultural moment. (Kirkus Reviews)
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. "Prepare
for Saints" is Steven Watson's brilliant and absorbing account of
how that revolutionary opera was born.
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