CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 727Greek texts collected by Carter; and the work celebrates the "time" that gave
birth to an egg. The potpourri of Greek texts is drawn from the Orphicorum
Fragmenta, Aeschylus, Plato, Hesiod, Euripides, Mimnermus, Archilochus, Sap-
pho, Ibycus, Homer, and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes.
Carter has also composed incidental music for Sophocles' Philoctetes and
Plautus' Mostellaria. When Carter was director of the music department at St.
John's College in Annapolis, Maryland (in the 1940s), he taught not only music
but also subjects in the fields of Graeco-Roman history and language. His pre-
occupation with classical mythology is further shown in his ballet score for The
Minotaur, discussed later in this chapter.
Ned Rorem (b. 1923), an author and musician who is particularly acclaimed
as an American composer of songs, has written two classically inspired songs
for voice and piano: "Philomel" (text by R. Barnefield) and "Echo's Song" (poem
by Ben Johnson). He also has a cantata for voices and piano on ten poems by
Howard Moss, entitled King Midas (of the golden touch). Moss tells us in the
notes for the recording (Phoenix PACD 126):
King Midas went through many transformations; two themes emerged originally: "the
King, himself, mourning the horrors of transforming the world into gold," and "the wish
fulfilled becoming a scourge" (Be careful what you ask for; you may get it).... If you
can imagine a King walking down Fifth Avenue, about to deposit an accumulation of
goldleaf at the Chase Manhattan bank, you'd have a notion of what 1 was after.
Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964) wrote The Harpies (1931), a comic chamber opera
that satirizes earlier mythological operas and parodies contemporary musical
styles with jazz and spicy slang, in a libretto (by the composer) based upon the
legend of Jason and the Argonauts and their encounter with Phineus and the
Harpies.
A work based on the legendary Julius Caesar is one of the few operas com-
posed to an overtly homosexual plot: Young Caesar (1971) by Lou Harrison
(b. 1917-) was originally written for puppets, with singers in the pit and em-
ploying adapted and original instruments. It has been revised for a big stage
with singers and performed by the Gay Men's Chorus of Portland. The story is
about Caesar's youthful homosexual affair with Nicomedes, king of Bithynia.
The renowned critic and composer Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) wrote Seven
Choruses from the Medea of Euripides (1934), for women's voices a capella and per-
cussion ad lib (translations by Countee), and Oedipus Tyrannos (1941), Sopho-
cles' text, in Greek, for men's voices, winds, and percussion.
The following are just a few among the many works by women composers
that touch upon classical themes:
- Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990), Nausicaa (1957). The libretto by Robert
Graves and A. Reid is derived from Graves' novel Homer's Daughter, a
work strongly influenced by Samuel Butler's The Authoress of the Odyssey;
the central thesis is that Nausicaa (not Homer) is responsible for the com-