4 Saints in 3 Acts: A Snapshot of the American Avant-Garde in the 1930sAuthor :
Paperback
Published : Tuesday 24 October 2017
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Description
Explores the remarkable 1934 opera Four Saints in Three Acts, focusing on the hitherto neglected significance of photography in documenting the opera and its all-African American cast, and examining the roles of fashion, dance, literature, and music in the opera's popular success.
Four Saints in Three Acts by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson was a major avant-garde phenomenon of the 1930s, an experimental opera that nonetheless achieved remarkable popular success. Photography was a key element of that success, but its complex roles in the construction, representation and dissemination of the opera have hitherto received little critical attention. The photographic recording of the all-African American cast in particular affords a unique insight into the complexities of Four Saints in relation to the Harlem Renaissance and the New York avant-gardes of the time. This book, published in collaboration with The Photographers' Gallery, London, presents a wide selection of photographs of the cast, performances, and other material - many images reproduced for the first time - alongside essays by an international range of scholars exploring different aspects of the opera, including dance, fashion, music, and avant-garde writing, as well as photography. -- .
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