722 THE SURVIVAL OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
harmonizing with the live soprano.... The vocal part, which ranges from F sharp be-
low middle C to B above the staff, also requires spoken pitches.... The form of the mu-
sic relates clearly to that of the text, with articulative synthesized interludes at appro-
priate points.^22
The following is a selective discussion of composers who illustrate the va-
riety of new musical techniques used in compositions on mythological themes.
Marvin David Levy (b. 1932) has given us an opera based on Eugene
O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, with libretto by H. Butler, first performed at
the Metropolitan Opera in 1967. It is generally atonal, with a strong sense of
drama and theater and special electronic sound effects prepared by Vladimir
Ussachevsky (1911-1990), another important pioneer in electronic music. Levy
revised the work for a production at the Chicago Lyric Opera in 1999.
Echoi (1963) by Lukas Foss (1922-), is numbered I, II, III, and IV; Foss is in-
spired by the story of Echo.
Ernst Krenek (1900-1991), who adopted various styles in his career (jazz id-
iom, romanticism, and atonality), wrote several classically inspired works: Orpheus
und Eurydike (1923); Leben des Orest (or Orestes, 1929); Cefalo e Procri (1933); Tarquin
(1941); Pallas Athena Weint (1950), about the downfall of democracy in Athens as
pertinent to the contemporary scene; and Medea (1952), a dramatic monologue for
voice and orchestra with text, after Euripides, by Robinson Jeffers.
John C. Eaton (b. 1935) has won particular acclaim for his opera The Cry of
Clytaemnestra (1979). The libretto by Patrick Creagh is based loosely on Aeschy-
lus' Oresteia. This is a powerful work, with moments of soaring lyricism and dra-
matic in its manipulation of electronic effects, whose organization depends upon
dissonance, including successive shrieks by Clytemnestra as she reveals her shift-
ing psychological and emotional states in a series of dream sequences. He has
also composed a large-scale opera, Heracles (1964), to a libretto by Michael Fried,
after Sophocles' The Women of Trachis and Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus. His Ajax
(1972), in a series of dream sequences, is for baritone and orchestra.
Typical of the work of innovators who experiment is that of Larry Don
Austin (b. 1930), whose compositions first combined jazz with atonality and
eventually employed computer-generated and -assisted techniques. Several of
his compositions are multimedia productions and suggest classical influence: for
example, Catharsis (for Two Improvisational Ensembles, Tape and Conductor,
1967) embodies the improvisational techniques he named his "open style." Other
works include Roma: A Theater Piece in Open Style (1965); The Maze (1966), a the-
ater piece in open style for percussionists, dancer, tape, and films; Phoenix, for
four-channel tape; and Agape, a celebration or electronic masque or rock mys-
tery play for soprano and baritone soloists, dancers, actors, rock band, chorus,
and tapes (1970).
Attis (in two parts, completed in 1980), by Albert Moeus (b. 1920), is scored
for soprano and tenor soli, chorus, percussion, and orchestra, using the Latin
text of Catullus. Moeus developed a technique he calls systematic chromatism.