EBOOK Ancient Drama in Music for the Modern Stage

Opera was invented at the end of the sixteenth century in imitation of the        supposed style of delivery of ancient Greek tragedy, and, since then, operas based        on Greek drama have been among the most important in the repertoire. This collection        of essays by leading authorities in the fields of Classics, Musicology, Dance        Studies, English Literature, Modern Languages, and Theatre Studies provides an        exceptionally wide-ranging and detailed overview of the relationship between the        twogenres. Since tragedies have played a much larger part than comedies in this        branch of operatic history, the volume mostly concentrates on the tragic repertoire,        but a chapter on musical versions of Aristophanes' Lysistrata is included, as well        as discussions of incidental music, a very important partof the musical reception of        ancient drama, from Andrea Gabrieli in 1585 to Harrison Birtwistle and Judith Weir        in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.