- Paperback: 382 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (3 July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0520223535
- ISBN-13: 978-0520223530
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.5 x 2.3 cm
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
1,391,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #97 in Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Cultural Studies > Modernism
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Review
"This heroic, pathbreaking generation vitally shaped the tastes of this century. Steven Watson has set America's modernists down in these pages with vivid accuracy."--Philip Johnson
Product Description
Perhaps the oddest and most influential collaboration in the history of American modernism was hatched in 1926, when a young Virgil Thomson knocked on Gertrude Stein's door in Paris. Eight years later, their opera "Four Saints in Three Acts" became a sensation - the longest-running opera in Broadway history to date and the most widely reported cultural event of its time. "Prepare for Saints" is Steven Watson's brilliant and absorbing account of how that revolutionary opera was born.
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4 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating cultural history
22 Mar 2001
Format:Hardcover
I came to this book hoping to learn about the creation and production of Stein's opera, and I was not disappointed. I thought the book delivered that information, and more. Watson writes well, and he tells a fascinating story of the complicated network of interpersonal relationships that were finally led this unlikely opera into production. I think Watson understands the nature of Stein's as well as anybody, although the focus of the book was not on the way the opera was written. He manages to express the way that all the participants were inspired by Stein's words in different ways, the "miracle" of their all having "to create and all of them did."
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Highly Entertaining, Informative Read!
19 Dec 2011
Format:Paperback
Many history books about opera and opera composers waste page after precious page clumsily describing the author's personal opinions about great music.
Instead of forcing irrelevant musical analysis down the throats of his readers, Steven Watson paints an engaging portrait of Virgil Thomson's network of friends, lovers, colleagues, and patrons. Watson's approach highlights the deeply collaborative aspect of theater and music, and his choice to focus on artists as well as musicians and poets is refreshing. (Too often, the analysis of a play or an opera focuses too heavily on the written word or note while devaluing the artistic importance of stage design, costumes, and lights.) Also refreshing: the large variety of women who appear in various roles throughout the book, as well as Watson's complete lack of hysteria when alluding to the romantic lives of his gay and lesbian subjects.
A previous reviewer points out that Watson's book largely ignores black theater traditions and fails to follow up adequately on the lives of the black actors who created Four Saints in Three Acts. I agree: I wish that Watson's care in describing the social influences that shaped Lincoln Kirstein and Chick Austin had extended to Eva Jessye and Beatrice Robinson-Wayne. Perhaps there is room for another book on the subject.
Instead of forcing irrelevant musical analysis down the throats of his readers, Steven Watson paints an engaging portrait of Virgil Thomson's network of friends, lovers, colleagues, and patrons. Watson's approach highlights the deeply collaborative aspect of theater and music, and his choice to focus on artists as well as musicians and poets is refreshing. (Too often, the analysis of a play or an opera focuses too heavily on the written word or note while devaluing the artistic importance of stage design, costumes, and lights.) Also refreshing: the large variety of women who appear in various roles throughout the book, as well as Watson's complete lack of hysteria when alluding to the romantic lives of his gay and lesbian subjects.
A previous reviewer points out that Watson's book largely ignores black theater traditions and fails to follow up adequately on the lives of the black actors who created Four Saints in Three Acts. I agree: I wish that Watson's care in describing the social influences that shaped Lincoln Kirstein and Chick Austin had extended to Eva Jessye and Beatrice Robinson-Wayne. Perhaps there is room for another book on the subject.
7 of 14 people found the following review helpful
More gossip than information
26 April 1999
Format:Hardcover
For those who know little or nothing about the Gertrude Stein/Virgil Thompson opera "Four Saints in Three Acts," this book will provide some basic information. Those searching for any kind of in depth analysis either of the libretto or the music will be disappointed, as I was. Long on the sexual preferences of the members of the 1930's modernist elite, short on any discussion of a landmark work of art. Listen to the original cast album instead.
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