CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 723Part I of Attis caused a furor when first performed by the Boston Symphony in
1960 because of its shocking and violent mood of pagan ritual.
Philip Glass (b. 1937) is most famous as the proponent of a musical style
known as minimalism. The CIVIL WarS is a large multimedia work created by
him and Robert Wilson for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles (1984), but it was
never performed completely. The Rome Section is a self-contained part (Act 5)
with text in Latin, Italian, and English. In the last scene Hercules, who comes to
earth to help humans, raises the Olympic torch as he returns to heaven. More
to the point, Glass also has Orphée (1993), an operatic redoing of Jean Cocteau's
classic movie for the stage, and the first of a trilogy followed by Cocteau's La
Belle et la Bête (1994) and Les Enfants Terribles (1995).
Finally, we single out four women composers who have been innovators in
their treatments of mythology in music.
Louise Juliette Talma (1906-1996) composed The Alcestiad (1958), with li-
bretto by Thornton Wilder, her most successful work. Talma, dean of women
composers, combined twelve-tone music with tonal lyricism, and hers was the
first opera by an American woman to be mounted by a major European com-
pany (its premiere was in Germany, not the United States).
Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) has won a measure of renown. Her chamber opera
Voice of Ariadne (1973), with libretto by Amalia Elguera, is based on Henry James'
The Last of the Valerii. A statue depicts Ariadne, who is not seen; for her a taped
voice is used with electronic sounds to depict the sea and distance. An Italian
count is infatuated with the legend of Ariadne; he alone can hear her voice and
he falls in love with her. In the end, his American wife takes on the guise of Ari-
adne and wins him back. Musgrave is fond of the flute: Orfeo I (1975), for flute
and prerecorded tape, is an improvisation on a theme; Orfeo II is another ver-
sion for solo flute with the music on the tape distributed among fifteen strings;
and Orfeo III. An Improvisation on a Theme is for solo flute and string quintet. The
flute represents Orpheus, and all other characters are portrayed by the strings.
Her Narcissus (1988) employs solo flute with digital delay.
Julie Kabat (b. 1947) set Evadne, one of Five Poems by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle),
to music. Evadne reminisces ecstatically about her love with Apollo. Two of the
other songs are entitled Oread and Fragment 113 (a poem based on Sappho's
"Neither honey or bee for me"). Kabat uses unusual instruments in unusual com-
binations, in this case, voice, glass harmonica, saw, and violin.
Jean Eichelberger Ivey (1923-) offers a feminist interpretation, Hera, Hung
from the Sky, for mezzo-soprano, seven winds, three percussion, piano, and elec-
tronic tape (1973, premiere). The poem by Carolyn Kizer reinterprets the myth
from a contemporary woman's point of view: The goddess Hera is punished by
her husband Zeus for her presumption "that woman was great as man."
Harry Partch. Among all the composers strongly influenced by Greek and
Roman themes, Harry Partch (1901-1976) may perhaps be called the most gen-