Dissertation Index



Author: Hunt, Graham G.

Title: \"Ever New Formal Structures\": The Evolution of the Dialogue-Scene in Wagner\'s Lohengrin

Institution: Duke University

Begun: January 1998

Completed: May 2001

Abstract:

Wagner once referred to the formal layout of \"Lohengrin\" and the possibilities for future innovations: \"it is bound to lead to ever new formal structures along the road which I myself have opened up.\" The three dialogue-scenes in Lohengrin reveal examples of these ?new formal structures? in various guises; these new formal structures contain both recontextualized Romantic opera traditions (such as the aria or duet) and Wagner?s own innovative musical structures. Each of the three scenes studied in this book represents a revolutionary construction for a dialogue-scene: one a chain of aria-like numbers whose varying complexity creates a structural-dramatic rhetoric, another a series of divergent monologue pairs and the third, a dissolution of traditional forms and the most progressive section of Lohengrin. The analyses of these scenes in this book, contextualized within the tradition of previous German Romantic operas, reveal Wagner\'s first concrete steps toward his new aesthetic ideal, in which music and drama cohere as two inseparable halves of one artistic whole.

Keywords: Wagner, Ortrud, Formal analysis, Dialogue, Adorno, Lohengrin

TOC:

Introduction
1. Lohengrin and the German Romantic Opera Tradition
2. Act II, Scene 2: The Manipulation Scene
3. Act III, Scene 2: The Catastrophe Scene
4. Act II, Scene 1: The Conspiracy Scene
Conclusion

Contact:

Graham G. Hunt
Department of Music, University of Texas at Arlington
700 Greek Row
Arlington, TX 76019
817-272-2446


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