This dissertation traces Richard Wagner’s influence on the twentieth century Western European novel. Through a close reading of three monumental works: Gabriele d’Annunzio’s Il fuoco (1900), Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927), and Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus: The story of the German composer Adrian Leverkühn, as told by a friend (1947), I argue that Wagner’s artistic and theoretical legacy helps set the course for modernist prose. By investigating the vast webs of intertextual references present in these works, this project examines how novelists manipulate multimedia collage, autobiographical incursion, and narrative silence to replicate the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or “Total Work of Art” both championed by Richard Wagner in his early theoretical manifesti and deployed, in evolving ways, throughout the composer’s life. I argue that, rather than creating simple allusions to the Wagnerian ideal across media, d’Annunzio, Proust, and Mann strive to reproduce the full spectrum of Wagner’s biographical and operatic spectacle within the confines of the printed page. In so doing, they pioneer revolutionary prose techniques that bring Wagner’s innovations to an audience far beyond the walls of the opera house.

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The purpose of this thesis is to present a context and background to thepractical design aspect of my work. I considered this project to be anexperiential journey in search of a way to make Wagner's Parsifal relevantand interesting in relation to my own life and personal sensibilities. My aimwas to use the music as my guide and my hope was to reach a scenographicsolution by following my intuition. This project has been an important step inmy development as an artist and designer and I feel it has strengthened thebond between my conscious and subconscious mind, giving me theconfidence to trust my feelings and harness them to come up with innovativeinterpretations translated into inventive designs

L'étude de l'esthétique de Richard Wagner est stimulée par la contradiction qui existe dans un sens entre l'option nationaliste et la volonté de créer une œuvre universelle. Par l'union de la musique et de la poésie, le compositeur a recréé un drame qui rappelle l'art hellénique. Par ce drame tragique, Wagner a donc voulu représenter le monde tel qu'il apparaît aux sens de tous les individus. Croyant que le monde est tombé dans une forme de décadence morale, il a estimé quel 'Art vrai pourrait agir comme rédempteur de l'humanité. C'est à ce moment que l'Allemand doit agir en tant que seul témoin d'un monde enharmonie avec lui-même. C'est par l'Amour du Beau naturel que les hommes vrais vaincront l'arbitraire et l'égoïsme du monde moderne.

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From the 1970s through the early 1990s numerous critics commented on an apparent “rebirth” of American opera. Subsequent scholarship has increasingly sanctioned a consensus view holding up Philip Glass and John Adams as the central figures in this opera resurgence. Although I do not dispute the importance of (post-)minimalism in these decades, my gambit in this dissertation is to reframe the idea of a late twentieth-century operatic renaissance by tracing a long relationship between jazz and the concept of American opera. The jazz genealogy of American opera that I develop in this study is intended not only to draw attention to a body of work that has been largely ignored but also to unfold antinomies of postmodern historical consciousness that were manifest in the operatic resurgence more generally. Although my inquiry extends as far back as the 1920s, this dissertation by no means presents a continuous history of opera from 1924 to 1994, as the subtitle might imply. The weight is squarely placed on the 1970s through the early 1990s. Chapter 1 explores racial dimensions of the concept of “modernity” through a study of Harlem Renaissance composer H. Lawrence Freeman’s never-performed “jazz opera” American Romance (1924-1929). Chapter 2 chronicles the Harlem Opera Society’s abandonment of its former European repertory and subsequent reinvention as the Afro-American Singing Theater/Jazz Opera Ensemble during the late 1960s and 1970s. Chapter 3 tracks the transformation of jazz in the 1980s into an increasingly historicist—or possibly posthistoricist—music through a series of works that I call “jazz-historical operas.” Chapter 4 works through a tension between “actuality” and allegory in Robert Ashley’s television opera trilogy (1978-1994) about American history. The name of Duke Ellington winds through the four chapters as a kind of red thread. “Ellington” functions as a multivalent trope, alternatively signifying hypermodern America, the black cultural tradition, composition, and improvisational “actuality.” In a brief epilogue I identify another figure whose name has somewhat more furtively shadowed my study: Richard Wagner. I suggest that the idea of an “Ellington-Wagner matrix” in American opera both symbolizes a tradition of cultural hybridity and identifies a problematic concerning history and sonic materiality (roughly, the distinction between “event” and “representation”) expounded in the preceding chapters. In some ways, my analysis of the deeply ambiguous status of historicity and modernity in twentieth century American culture will prove consonant with many previous discussions of the topic. But I hope that in certain fundamental respects my study may also be understood as a novel, even interventionist foray into historical theory. Race has scarcely been an overlooked topic in critical inquiry and cultural theory of the last three decades, but it is hard to ignore the Eurocentric—or Euro-American—thrust of much of the canonical discourse on postmodernity and historicity, some of which was surveyed above. My attempts to interpret transformations in historical consciousness through shifting relationships between two culturally and racially supercharged signifiers—“jazz” and “opera”—might be taken as a challenge to this tendency.

Un parcours au coeur des écrits et des témoignages détaillant les divers processus des répétitions orchestrés par les metteurs en scène a permis d'en arriver à situer la pratique de Peter Sellars. La présente étude se base sur l'observation des répétitions de Tristan und Isolde qu'il a mis en scène au printemps 2005 à l'Opéra de Paris. L'analyse de la génétique de ce spectacle s'est effectuée par la tenue détaillée d'un journal de bord ainsi que des entretiens exclusifs avec les principaux créateurs de la production. Dans ce mémoire, il s'agit d'abord de développer les spécificités du parcours de Sellars dans la mise en scène d'opéra ainsi que la résolution des problèmes posés par Tristan et l'inspiration du travail de ses prédécesseurs. Dans un deuxième temps, les collaborations de Sellars issues de relations de longue date sont analysées: celles avec Gérard Mortier, directeur artistique de l'Opéra de Paris (2005-2009), James F. Ingalls, éclairagiste qui l'accompagne depuis trente ans, ainsi qu'avec Bill Viola, vidéaste. Pour terminer, le noyau du mémoire, celui de la direction des chanteurs par Sellars, est présenté à travers diverses méthodes de travail employées. De surcroît, il est question de sa collaboration significative avec le chef d'orchestre Esa-Pekka Salonen et du contexte de la reprise du spectacle. Comme au théâtre, les représentations d'opéra naissent d'un processus de création où les observateurs sont rarement admis, car la nature de leur présence peut perturber le déroulement à caractère intime des répétitions. Dans ce mémoire sont réunis les éléments substantiels du déroulement des répétitions chez Sellars. Son contenu tente de décrire avec le plus d'objectivité et de justesse possible un processus où, bien souvent, les intentions se dissimulent et se manifestent à l'intérieur de sous-entendus et de non-dits. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Peter Sellars, Répétitions, Tristan und Isolde, Spectacle vivant, Opéra, Théâtre, Wagner.

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This thesis focuses on the personality of Richard Wagner, on his music and opera reform. After getting acquainted with biographical of the artist this thesis deals with the various stages of formation and development of the artist this thesis deals with the various stages of formation and development of the music festival and the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.An integral part of this thesis is the inclusion of all sources of inspiration that led Wagner to the reform - from colleagues, composers, formal musical structures inspiration to drama and mythology. The main emphasis inthis thesis is given to the reform itself. This reform is closely related to the theoretical works of Richard Wagner, and is subsequently applied in his operas, which are in this thesis analyzed in detail. Furthemore, the focuses on the number of composers, who were influenced and ispired by the reform of Richard Wagner and who applied this reform in their operas and instrumental works. The conclusion of the thesis is a summary of contribution of the Wagner´s opera reform.