Reconfiguring Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Opera

Yayoi Uno Everett is Professor of Music at University of Illinois at Chicago and author of Music of Louis Andriessen.

In the last 20 years, scholarly research on opera has encompassed cultural, media, gender, psychoanalytic, and literary theories. With this book, Everett makes an important, impressive contribution to that scholarship. . . . Highly recommended.(Choice) [O]ne of the most satisfying aspects of Reconfiguring Myth is Everett's sensitive attention to the way different productions articulate an opera as historical drama, allegory, and myth; such case studies set a new standard in our understanding of contemporary opera as not only a multi-dimensional, but also a constantly changing theatrical experience.(Music and Letters)

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations1. Toward a Multimodal Discourse on Opera2. Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar: A Myth of "Wounded" Freedom3. Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater: A Narrative of Trauma and Ambivalence4. John Adams' Doctor Atomic: A Faustian Parable for the Modern Age?5. The Anti-hero in Tan Dun's The First EmperorEpilogue: Opera as Myth in the Global AgeGlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex