| Summary: | While questions of irony and politics abound in the literature on Louis Andriessen (1939–21), a critical evaluation of intertextuality in his work does not yet exist, despite the composer’s constant drive towards a polystylistic language in music and theatre that very often incorporates multiple outside sources and a wide range of texts as compositional or narrative inspiration. La Commedia (2004–08), a ‘film opera’ by the composer with filmmaker Hal Hartley, provides a useful case study for opening this discussion as it comprises many textual, visual, and musical voices (often overlayered and semantically obscured) to express something of a deeply intertextual and sometimes impenetrable author and text: Dante and his Divine Comedy. This thesis hypothesises that the intertextuality of La Commedia is not just a postmodern and irreverent commentary on the Comedy, but that the opera’s intertext is a way of reflecting the most important narrative, historical and theological aspects of Dante’s complex epic. To interrogate this idea, this thesis proposes that two themes operating as dramatic devices throughout the work are inextricably linked to its intertextuality—and, therefore, to Dante—so must shape the analysis of its music, media, and staging: melancholia and noise. Appended to this thesis is a portfolio of five original compositions by the author: Grim's Ditch, Jacinto Chiclana, The Beginning of an Idea, Life Piles Up, and FLUX.
|
|---|