Darius Milhaud - Christophe Colomb, Op. 102 (b. Marseille, 4. September 1892 - d. Geneva, 22. June 1974) [Preface]

Abstract

At different points in the history of the medium, certain operatic subjects seem to exert a powerful attraction to composers. The significantly more famous Der fliegende Holländer of Richard Wagner was roughly contemporaneous with Le vaisseau fantôme of Pierre-Louis Dietsch; the completion of the Wozzeck of Alban Berg precedes that of Manfred Gurlitt’s Wozzeck by mere weeks. In recent years, Walter Benjamin’s philosophical essay ‘On the Concept of History’ has been given dramatic treatment (albeit in a rather more discursive and abstract manner) by Brian Ferneyhough, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, and Vinko Globokar. Reductively speaking, the predilection for certain subjects by contemporary musicians, despite being separated by geography, practice, and style, may be said to function as a sort of cultural barometer, speaking towards the hopes, fears, and preoccupations of artists in their historically contingent milieu.