Heart, Cask, House, Pit, Pendulum. Four Poe-stories and the opera stage

Zoltán Csehy

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume: X , Issue 1, 2015, p. 43-56., ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2015.10.1.43-56

Abstract:

This study deals with the operatic adaptations of four short stories by E. A. Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum). on the one hand, the adaptations use the methods and cliches of the melodramatic concept of the classical opera (Adolphe, Butts, Debussy); on the other hand, they utilize postfreudian strategies of interpretation ( Haas, Bettinelli, Glass, Coli). The music is often submitted to the text (Copeland), but there are some cases when the music puts up resistance to the words (Pinkham, Solari). Especially interesting is Poe as person’s or as an alter ego’s (Argento, Adolphe) involvement in the opera, and the metaphorical hibridity used by Haas.

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

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