Classical Mythology

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 731

tury B.c. vase); "Sunrise" ("The god, Helios, readies his chariot to take up

the sun from the crystal gates of the horizon of the ocean. The wings flap,

the horses whinny in the clouds as the ocean disappears").

• "Come Home to the Sea," described by Davis as "about the joy and power
  of the ocean ... as heard in the conversation between the two dolphins."


• "Olympics," which relates the games to the founding of the festival by
  Zeus or Heracles.


• "Nepenthe," indebted to the scene in the Odyssey in which Telemachus
  visits Menelaus and Helen and the pain-banishing drug nepenthes phar-
  macon is added to the wine.


• "Orpheus," with sections entitled "Descent into the Underworld" ("the
  seal on the gate pops with the hiss of the snake that bit Orpheus' wife"),
  "Dialog with the Devil" ("the little flute sound represents Orpheus ask-
  ing questions answered by the fuzz guitar sound of the devil"), and "As-
  cent from Hell."


• "Sirens," divided into "Crash and the Call," "The Dance," "The Singing
  Contest" [with the Muses], and "Farewell."

A classic of new age music is Missa Gaia (Earth Mass) (1981) by Paul Win-
ter. This work is inspired by universal ecological concerns (scientific, mythical,
and spiritual) expressed by words and music in the religious context of the Chris-
tian Mass. It embodies freely traditional parts of the service (e.g., Kyrie, Sanc-
tus, and Agnus Dei) with sections entitled "Return to Gaia" and "Dance of Gaia"
in a modern celebration of the earth that highlights pagan connotations inher-
ent in the classical Greek concept of all-embracing Gaia. The section "Return to
Gaia" is described as a "dream fantasy, of seeing Gaia (the Earth) from space;
inspired by the words of astronaut Rusty Schweichart, the first man to walk in
space without an umbilical." Fr. Benedict Groeschel captures the spirit of the
piece: "In choosing the words and format of the Mass, Paul Winter has done
more than simply select a musical form familiar to western audiences.... [H]e
means to bring together into a hymn of praise, music ancient and modern, drawn
from the Catholic liturgy as well as primitive religion, music inherent in the
sounds of earth's creatures, animate and inanimate. Missa Gaia is literally meant
to be a call to worship addressed to all creation."^27
Rick Wakeman and Ramon Remedios have composed A Suite of the Gods, a
collection of new age songs for tenor, keyboards, and percussion: "Dawn of
Time," "The Oracle," "Pandora's Box," "Chariot of the Sun," "The Flood," "The
Voyage of Ulysses," and "Hercules."

The American Musical Among the classics we must certainly place My Fair Lady
(1956) by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, another adaptation of the leg-
end of Pygmalion via Bernard Shaw. Some other Broadway musicals that may