CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 725
in 1987 (in a production that was recorded) and revived in 1989 in New York,
it aroused varied and widespread critical response. This is Partch's most
grandiose musical theater piece. A mobile marching brass band juxtaposes mu-
sic in a traditional style; the action requires singers, actors, dancers, acrobats,
tumblers, gymnasts, baton-twirlers, fire-throwers, and a filmed fireworks dis-
play. The scenario alternates between ancient Thebes and the courthouse park
(in Greek revival style) of a small mid western town in the 1950s. Each major
singer plays two roles—Dion, rock star (a pop idol archetype for Elvis Presley)
and Hollywood King of Ishbu Kubu with his fanatic female followers is also
Dionysus, god of the frenzied Bacchae; Sonny, a young, disturbed man in the
courthouse park, becomes Pentheus, the youthful king of ancient Thebes; and
Mom, devotee of Ishbu Kubu and mother of Sonny, plays her alter ego Agave,
mother of Pentheus and leader of the Bacchae. The action is that of ritual the-
ater; lines are spoken or declaimed with or without music, amidst the more
purely musical episodes; and it is not the music itself that matters as much as
the theatrical impact and the universal import of the imaginative and provoca-
tive libretto. Partch explains: "Dion, the Hollywood idol, is a symbol of domi-
nant mediocrity, Mom is a symbol of blind matriarchal power, and Sonny is a
symbol of nothing so much as a lost soul, one who does not or cannot conform
to the world he was born to." (See the box on p. 290).
Other works by Partch are influenced by classical mythology. Ulysses at the
Edge (1955) is a "small chamber work" that appears in other versions as Ulysses
Departs from the Edge of the World and Ulysses Turns Homeward from the Edge of
the World. Partch, in reminiscence of his hobo years, thought of Ulysses as an-
other wanderer like himself. This piece eventually became the fifth part of The
Wayward, a collection of his compositions on American themes. Castor and Pol-
lux (1952) is called A Dance for the Twin Rhythms of Gemini. It is one part of a
three-part work, Plectra and Percussion Dances, subtitled Satyr-Play Music for Dance
Theater. The work has two sections, one for Castor, the other for Pollux; each
section is in four parts: (1) Leda and the Swan, (2) Conception, (3) Incubation
(or Gestation), (4) Chorus of Delivery from the Egg. Partch reveals that from the
moment of insemination, each egg uses exactly 234 beats in cracking. Daphne of
the Dunes (1958, rev. 1967) was originally the music score for a film. Partch col-
laborated with the Chicago experimental filmmaker Madeline Tourtelot in the
making of six films. One of them was Wind Song, a study of nature and a mod-
ern version of the myth of Daphne and Apollo, for which Partch composed and
performed the sound track. Another of their collaborations was for the movie
Revelation in the Courthouse Park (1961).
Barber, Stravinsky, and Some of the Many Others. One of the foremost American
composers is Samuel Barber (1910-1981), whose popularity has been maintained
(despite bitter, adverse criticism) because of the universal persistence of his
melodic neo-romanticism. His Andromache's Farewell (1963) for soprano and