Reviving Music and Myth: Neoclassical Aesthetics in Stravinsky's 'Orpheus'
Stravinsky's ballet 'Orpheus' (1948) is left almost completely unaddressed despite extensive scholarship on the composer's career. In this production, the choice to mask Orpheus (literally) draws our attention to the masking function of the neoclassical aesthetic for political and personal thought. The question is: what is uncovered when the mask is removed? By analysing artistic influences, Stravinsky's dogmatic 'Poetics of Music', and theoretical examples, one will see how this ballet communicates much more about Stravinsky's life than could be covered by a simple mask.