François Perrier's "The Sacrifice of Iphigenia" (17th century), depicting Agamemnon's murder of his daughter Iphigenia.

Iphigenia ( /ɪfɨdʒɨˈnaɪ.ə/; Ancient Greek: Ἰφιγένεια, Iphigeneia) is a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology.^[1] In Attic accounts,^[2] her name means "strong-born", "born to strength", or "she who causes the birth of strong offspring."^[3]

Post-Homeric Greek myth[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (June 2010)

Artemis punished Agamemnon after he killed a deer in a sacred grove and boasted he was the better hunter. On their way to Troy to participate in the Trojan War, Agamemnon's ships were suddenly motionless, as Artemis stopped the wind in Aulis (ancient Greece). The soothsayer, Calchas, revealed an oracle that appeased Artemis, so that the Achaean fleet could sail. This much is in Homer, who does not discuss the aspect of this episode in which other writers explain that the only way to appease Artemis was to sacrifice Iphigenia to her. According to the earliest versions he did so, but other sources claim that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to Tauris in Crimea to prepare others for sacrifice, and that the goddess left a deer^[4] or a goat (the god Pan transformed) in her place. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women called her Iphimede (Ἰφιμέδη)^[5] and told that Artemis transformed her into the goddess Hecate.^[6] Antoninus Liberalis said that Iphigenia was transported to the island of Leuke, where she was wedded to immortalized Achilles under the name of Orsilochia.

Iphigenie (1862) by Anselm Feuerbach

Euripides has two stories about Iphigenia. In Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon is told by Calchas that in order for the winds to allow him to sail to Troy, Agamemnon must sacrifice Iphigenia to Artemis. Agamemnon fools Clytemnestra into bringing Iphigenia to Aulis by sending a letter to Clytemnestra telling her that Iphigenia will be married to Achilles. There is one moment in the play where Agamemnon regrets his decision and tries to send another letter telling them not to come, however Menelaus intercepts the letter. After Agamemnon and Menelaus have an argument, Clytemnestra arrives at Aulis with Iphigenia and Orestes. Agamemnon tries to convince Clytemnestra to go back to Argos while he marries Iphigenia to Achilles. Clytemnestra refuses to leave and plans on marrying off her daughter the proper way. When Clytemnestra sees Achilles she brings up the marriage, however Achilles doesn’t know what she is talking about and slowly the truth comes out about Agamemnon’s true plan. Achilles vows to help prevent the murder of Iphigenia even after the Greeks throw stones at him. After Iphigenia and Clytemnestra mourn together, Iphigenia makes the noble decision to die in honor and by her own will and asks Achilles not to stop the men. When Iphigenia is brought to the altar to be slain she willingly allows herself to be sacrificed. As Iphigenia is about to be slain a deer is put in her place.

Euripides’ character of Iphigenia holds many complex meanings that stem from her decision to willingly sacrifice herself. There are several possible reasons for Iphigenia’s decision. The first is that Iphigenia wants to please her father and protect the family name. Not only does Iphigenia want to please her father, but she also forgives him for making the decision to sacrifice her. The second reason is that Iphigenia sees this as a patriotic cause. Iphigenia realizes that if she dies, then the men can sail to Troy and win and protect their own women. If the men did not get to Troy to defeat the Trojans then all the Greek women would be raped and possibly killed. Thus, Iphigenia sees her death as saving hundreds of women. A third reason for Iphigenia’s choice could be a more selfish reason. Iphigenia wants to be remembered with honor through her self-sacrifice, unlike how Helen of Troy is viewed. While the concept of glory is mostly seen in the men who fight, here it is seen in Iphigenia. A final possible reason is that Iphigenia sees bad in her father and now has nothing to live for.

In Euripides’ other story about Iphigenia, Iphigenia in Tauris, the play takes place after the sacrifice and after Orestes has killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. In order for Orestes to escape the persecutions of the Erinyes for killing his mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Orestes has been ordered by Apollo to go to Tauris.^[7] While in Tauris Orestes is to carry off the xoanon (carved wooden cult image) of Artemis which had fallen from heaven, and bring it to Athens. When Orestes arrives at Tauris with Pylades, son of Strophius and intimate friend of Orestes, the pair are at once captured by the Tauri, among whom the custom is to sacrifice all Greek strangers to Artemis. The priestess of Artemis is Iphigenia, and it is her duty to perform the sacrifice. Iphigenia and Orestes don’t recognize each other. Iphigenia finds out from Orestes, who is still concealing his identity, that Orestes is alive. Iphigenia then offers to release Orestes if he will carry home a letter from her to Greece. Orestes refuses to go, but bids Pylades to take the letter while Orestes will stay to be slain. After a conflict of mutual affection, Pylades at last yields, but the letter brings about recognition between brother and sister, and all three escape together, carrying with them the image of Artemis. After their return to Greece, and having been saved from dangers by Athena, she orders Orestes to take the Xoanon to the town of Halae where he is to build a temple for Artemis Tauropolos and let a man be sacrificed there during every festival in atonement for his own sacrifice. Iphigenia is by Athena sent to the sanctuary of Artemis in Brauron where she is to be the priestess until she dies there. According to the Spartans, however, the image of Artemis was transported by them to Laconia, where the goddess was worshipped as Artemis Orthia.

These close identifications of Iphigenia with Artemis have encouraged some scholars to believe that she was originally a hunting goddess whose cult was subsumed by the Olympian Artemis.

Among the Taurians[link]

The people of Tauris/Taurica facing the Euxine Sea^[8] worshipped the maiden goddess Artemis. Some very early Greek sources in the Epic Cycle affirmed that Artemis rescued Iphigenia from the human sacrifice her father was about to perform, for instance in the lost epic Cypria, which survives in a summary by Proclus:^[9] "Artemis, however, snatched her away and transported her to the Tauroi, making her immortal, and put a stag in place of the girl upon the altar." The goddess swept the young princess off to Tauris where she became a priestess at the Temple of Artemis.

The earliest known accounts of the death of Iphigenia are included in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris, both Athenian tragedies of the fifth century BCE set in the Heroic Age. In the dramatist's version, the Taurians worshipped both Artemis and Iphigenia in the Temple of Artemis at Tauris.

Other variations of the death of Iphigenia include her being rescued at her sacrifice by Artemis and transformed into the goddess Hecate. Another example includes Iphigenia’s brother, Orestes, discovering her identity and helping him steal an image of Artemis. The reason for many discrepancies in the telling of the myth is because playwrights such as Euripides modified the stories about Iphigenia to make them more palatable for the audiences and make sequels using the same characters.

Many traditions arose from the sacrifice of Iphigenia. One prominent version is credited to the Spartans. Rather than sacrificing virgins, they would whip the male victim in front of a sacred image of Artemis, until an erotic reaction occurred and he ejaculated, fertilizing the land with blood and semen. However, most tributes to Artemis inspired by her sacrifice, were more traditional. Taurians especially performed sacrifices of bulls and virgins in honour of Artemis.^[10]

Iphianassa[link]

Iphianassa (Ἰφιάνασσα) is the name of one of Agamemnon's three daughters in Homer's Iliad (ix.145, 287)^[11] The name Iphianassa may be simply an older variant of the name Iphigenia. "Not all poets took Iphigenia and Iphianassa to be two names for the same heroine," Kerenyi remarks,^[12] "though it is certain that to begin with they served indifferently to address the same divine being, who had not belonged from all time to the family of Agamemnon."

Cymon and Iphigenia[link]

Cymon and Iphigenia c. 1884 by Frederic Leighton

The episode of Iphigenia and Cymon that inspired such painters as Benjamin West (1773), John Everett Millais (1848) and Frederic Leighton (1884) is not a Greek myth, but a novella taken from Boccaccio's Decameron and developed later by the poet and dramatist John Dryden.

The tale intended to demonstrate the power of love. As Iphigenia sleeps in a grove by the sea, a noble, but coarse and unlettered Cypriot youth, Cymon, seeing Iphigenia's beauty, falls in love with her. Cymon, by the power of love, becomes an educated and polished courtier.

A modern viewpoint[link]

In Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze vol. 2, "Sacrifice", (ISBN 1-58240-399-6), the substitution of a deer for Iphigenia was a pious lie invented by Odysseus to comfort the grieving Clytemnestra. However, it did not work and Clytemnestra angrily cursed the whole Achaean army, wishing they would all die in the war.

Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country contained a similar idea, with a play named Iphigenia at Ilium running through the novel as a leitmotif. Within the novel, the ghost of Iphigenia tells Achilles that all the poets lied. Iphigenia says that she did not die willingly, nor was a hind sent to take her place. Iphigenia also realizes that these myths no longer have any power over her. Achilles then attempts to claim her as his wife, however, she reminds him that "women are no good to you dead".

In Glyn Iliffe's Gates of Troy, Iphigenia is in fact the daughter of Eperitus, a friend and bodyguard of Odysseus, who slept with Clytemnestra during the courtship of Helen.

There is also speculation that Iphigenia was actually the daughter of Helen and Theseus.^[1]

Some modern sources[link]

• Bonnard, A. Iphigénie à Aulis. Tragique et Poesie. Museum Helveticum, Basel, v. 2, p. 87-107, 1945.
• Croisille, J.-M. Le sacrifice d’Iphigénie dans l’art romain et la littérature latine. Latomus, Brussels, v. 22, p. 209-225, 1963.
• Decharme, P. "Iphigenia." In: c. d'Aremberg, and E Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, v. 3 (1ère partie), p. 570-572, (1877–1919).
• Jouan, F. "Le Rassemblement d’Aulis et le Sacrifice d´Iphigénie." In: _______, Euripide et les Légendes des Chants Cypriens. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, pp 259–298, 1966.
• Kahil, L. "Le sacrifice d’Iphigénie." In: 'Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome'. Antiquité, Rome, v. 103, p. 183-196, 1991.
• Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks (New York/London:Thames and Hudson) 1959, pp 331–36 et passim
• Graves, Robert (1955), The Greek Myths, London: Penguin, pgs 73-75: (Iphigenia Among the Taurians)
• Kjellberg, L. "Iphigenia." In: A.F. Pauly and G. Wissowa Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, v. 9, 1916, pp. 2588–2622.
• Lloyd-Jones, H. '"Artemis and Iphigenia" Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983) pp 87–102.
• Peck, Harry. "Iphigenia.' in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.
• Séchen, L. "Le Sacrifice d’Iphigénie" Révue des Études Grecques, Paris, pp 368–426, 1931.
• Shanower, E. Age of Bronze: Sacrifice, 2005.
• West, M.L. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.

Some adaptations of the Iphigenia story[link]

• Cymon and Iphigenia, a solo Cantata by Thomas Arne (1753)
• Iphigenia at Aulis, play by Euripides.
  • Iphigénie en Aulide, play by Jean Racine.
  • Iphigénie en Aulide, opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck.
  • Iphigenia, film by Michael Cacoyannis.
  • The Songs of the Kings, novel by Barry Unsworth.
  • Iphigenia, play by Mircea Eliade.
  • Iphigenia at Aulis, play by Ellen McLaughlin (Part of Iphigenia and Other Daughters)
  • Ifigeneia, a rewrite of the play by Finn Iunker
  • Iphigenia at Aulis, the first part of The Greeks trilogy, adapted and directed by John Barton for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980.
  • Iphigenia 2.0, modern adaptation of the play, by Charles L. Mee[1]
  • Iph. . ., adapted by Colin Teevan.
• Iphigenia in Tauris, play by Euripides.
  • Iphigenie auf Tauris, play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
  • Iphigénie en Tauride, opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck.
  • Iphigenia at Tauris, play by Ellen McLaughlin (Part of Iphigenia and Other Daughters)
• Iphigenia in Brooklyn, a solo cantata by Peter Schickele under the guise of P. D. Q. Bach. (This version of the story may be less tragic than others.)
• Iphigénie, ballet by Charles le Picq.
• Iphigenia, play by Samuel Coster.
• Iphigenia in Orem, part of Bash: Latter-Day Plays, a collection of three plays by Neil LaBute.
• A Memory of Wind, story by Rachel Swirsky.
• Agamemnon’s Daughter, novel by Ismail Kadare.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iphigeneia

• Iphigénie de Jean Racine : Analysis, Plot overview (in French)
• Contemporary interpretation of Gluck by Australian Barrie Kosky at the Komische Oper Berlin, May 1, 2007
• Iphigenia

Michael Cacoyannis (Greek: Μιχάλης Κακογιάννης; 11 June 1922 – 25 July 2011)^[1] was a prominent Greek Cypriot filmmaker from Cyprus, best known for his 1964 film Zorba the Greek. He directed the 1983 Broadway revival of the musical based on the film. Much of his work was rooted in classical texts, especially those of the Greek tragedian Euripides. He was nominated for an Academy Award five times, a record for any Greek Cypriot film artist. He received Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film nominations for Zorba the Greek, and two nominations in the Foreign Language Film category for Electra and Iphigenia.

Life[link]

Michalis (or Mikhalis) Kakogiannis was born in 1922 in Limassol, Cyprus as Μιχάλης Κακογιάννης. In 1939, he was sent by his father, Sir Panayotis Loizou Cacoyannis, to London to become a lawyer. However, after producing Greek-language programs for the BBC World Service during World War II,^[2] He ended up at the Old Vic school, and enjoyed a brief stage career there under the name Michael Yannis before he began working on films. After having trouble finding a directing job in the British film industry, Cacoyannis moved to Greece, and in 1953 he made his first film, Windfall in Athens.^[2]

He was offered the chance to direct Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando in the film Reflections in a Golden Eye, but declined. He had worked on many occasions with the Greek actress Irene Papas and especially Elli Lambeti with whom he was in love. Between 1959 and 1967, he was in a relationship with Yael Dayan, a progressive Israeli politician and author.^[3] In 1971, he teamed up once more with Papas for the film The Trojan Women.^{[citation needed]}

Death[link]

Cacoyannis died on 25 July 2011 in Athens, aged 89.

Filmography[link]

• The Cherry Orchard (1999): director, screenwriter, producer
• Pano kato ke plagios (Up, Down and Sideways) (1993): director, screenwriter, producer
• Glykeia patrida (Sweet Country) (1986): director, screenwriter, producer
• Iphigenia (1977): director, screenwriter
• Attilas '74 (1975): director, producer
• The Trojan Women (1971): director, screenwriter, producer
• Otan ta psaria vgikan sti steria (The Day the Fish Came Out) (1967): director, screenwriter, producer
• Alexis Zorbas (Zorba the Greek) (1964): director, screenwriter, producer
• Electra (1962): director, screenwriter, producer
• Il Relitto (The Wastrel) (1961): director, screenwriter
• Eroica (Our Last Spring) (1960): director, screenwriter, producer
• To telefteo psemma (A Matter of Dignity) (1957): director, screenwriter, producer
• To koritsi me ta mavra (The Girl in Black) (1956): director, screenwriter
• Stella (1955): director, screenwriter, producer
• Kyriakatiko xypnima (Windfall in Athens) (1954): director, screenwriter

Awards and nominations[link]

Cannes Film Festival

• 1954 : Golden Palm for "Windfall in Athens" — nominated
• 1955 : Golden Palm for "Stella" — nominated
• 1956 : Golden Palm for "A Girl in Black" — nominated
• 1957 : Golden Palm for "A Matter of Dignity" — nominated
• 1961 : Golden Palm for "The Wastrel" — nominated
• 1962 : Golden Palm for "Elektra" — nominated^[4]
• 1962 : Grand Jury Prize for "Elektra" — won^[4]
• 1962 : Technical Award for "Elektra" — won^[4]
• 1977 : Golden Palm for "Iphigenia" — nominated

Berlin International Film Festival

• 1960 : Golden Bear for "Our Last Spring" — nominated^[5]
• 1963 : David O. Selznick Award for "Elektra" — won

Academy Award (Oscar)

• 1963 : Best Foreign Language Film for "Elektra" — nominated^[6]
• 1964 : Best Picture for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated
• 1964 : Best Director for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated
• 1964 : Best Adapted Screenplay for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated
• 1977 : Best Foreign Language Film for "Iphigenia" — nominated

Golden Globe

• 1956 : Best Foreign Language Film for "Stella" — won
• 1957 : Best Foreign Language Film for "A Girl in Black" — won
• 1965 : Best Director for "Zorba the Greek — nominated

British Academy Award (BAFTA)

• 1966 : Best Film for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated
• 1966 : UN Award for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated

New York Film Critics

• 1964 : Best Film for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated
• 1964 : Best Director for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated
• 1964 : Best Screenplay for "Zorba the Greek" — nominated

David di Donatello Award

• 1964 : Special Plaque for "Zorba the Greek" — won

Thessaloniki Film Festival

• 1960 : Special Contribution Award — won
• 1961 : Best Director for "Our Last Spring" — won
• 1962 : Best Film for "Elektra" — won
• 1962 : Best Director for "Elektra" — won
• 1977 : Best Film for "Iphigenia" — won
• 1999 : Union of Film and Television Technicians Award for "The Cherry Orchard" — won

Moscow Film Festival

• 1956 : Silver Medal for "A Girl in Black" — Won

Edinburgh Film Festival

• 1954 : Diploma of Merit for "Windfall in Athens" — won
• 1962 : Diploma of Merit for "Elektra" — won

Montreal World Film Festival

• 1999 : Special Contribution Award — won

Jerusalem Film Festival

• 1999 : Lifetime Achievement Award — won

Cairo International Film Festival

• 2001 : Lifetime Achievement Award — won

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mihalis Kakogiannis at the Internet Movie Database
• Obituary 'Michael Cacoyannis: Theatre and film director best known for 'Zorba the Greek, The Independent, 27 July 2011
• Obituary of Michael Cacoyannis, The Daily Telegraph, 25 July, 2011
• Michael Cacoyannis Foundation

Johann Peter Schickele (born July 17, 1935) is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist, best known for comedy albums featuring music written by Schickele, but which he presents as being composed by the fictional P. D. Q. Bach.

Biography[link]

Schickele was born in Ames, Iowa, to Alsatian immigrant parents, and brought up in Washington, D.C., and Fargo, North Dakota, where he studied composition with Sigvald Thompson. Graduating from Fargo Central High in 1952 and then graduating with a degree in music from Swarthmore College in 1957, he was the first student at Swarthmore and the only student in his class with such a degree. He graduated from the Juilliard School with an M.S. in musical composition; in the ensuing years he has frequently cited Roy Harris as the most influential of his teachers.

Career[link]

Schickele has composed more than 100 original works for symphony orchestra, choral groups, chamber ensemble, voice, film (e.g. Silent Running, and animated adaptations of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen),^[1] and television. He has also written music for school bands, as well as a number of folk musicians, most notably Joan Baez (for whom he also orchestrated and arranged three albums during the mid-1960s, Noël, Joan, and Baptism). He has also written a number of musicals, and has organized numerous concert performances as both musical director and performer. Schickele is active on the international and North American concert circuit.

Schickele's musical creations have won him multiple awards. His extensive body of work is marked by a distinctive style which integrates the European classical tradition with an unmistakable American idiom. As a musical educator he also hosted the classical music educational radio program Schickele Mix which was broadcast on many public radio stations in the United States. Lack of funding ended the production of new programs in the late 1990s, and rebroadcasts of the existing programs finally ceased in June 2007.^[2] Only 119 of the 169 programs were in the rebroadcast rotation, because earlier shows contained American Public Radio production IDs rather than ones crediting Public Radio International. In March 2006, some of the other "lost episodes" were added back to the rotation, with one notable program remnant of the Periodic Table of Musics, listing the names of musicians and composers as mythical element names in a format reminiscent of the Periodic table.^[3]

In recent years, Schickele has created the non-P.D.Q. Bach albums Hornsmoke, Sneaky Pete and the Wolf, and The Emperor's New Clothes.^{[citation needed]}

Schickele, an accomplished bassoonist, was also a member of the chamber rock trio Open Window, which wrote and performed music for the revue Oh! Calcutta!. Schickele's two children, Matt and Karla, have been members of various indie rock bands, including Beekeeper, Ida, K, and M Shanghai String Band.^[4] His brother was the film director and musician David Schickele (d. 1999).^[5]

Schickele's music is published by the Theodore Presser Company.

P. D. Q. Bach[link]

Besides composing music under his own name, Schickele has developed an elaborate parodic persona built around his studies of the fictional "youngest and the oddest of the twenty-odd children" of Johann Sebastian Bach, P.D.Q. Bach. His clever parodies of baroque and classical music, written under this particular Bach’s name, have earned him four Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Performance/Album. Among the huge repertory still being uncovered by the diligent Schickele are such challenging works as The Abduction of Figaro, Canine Cantata: "Wachet Arf!" (S. K9), Good King Kong Looked Out, the Trite Quintet (S. 6 of 1), "O Little Town of Hackensack", A Little Nightmare Music, the cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn, the Concerto for Horn and Hardart, and perhaps best known of all, the dramatic oratorio, Oedipus Tex, featuring the O.K. Chorale. Though P.D.Q. Bach is ostensibly a Baroque composer, Schickele extends his parodic repertoire to modern works such as "Einstein on the Fritz", a parody of his Juilliard classmate Philip Glass.

His fictitious "home establishment," where he reports having tenure as "Very Full Professor Peter Schickele" of "musicolology" and "musical pathology", is the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, a little-known institution which does not normally welcome out-of-state visitors. To illustrate the work of his uncovered composer, Schickele invented a range of rather unusual instruments. The most complicated of these is the Hardart, a variety of tone-generating devices mounted on the frame of an "automat", a coin-operated food dispenser. The modified automat is used in the Concerto for Horn and Hardart, a play on the name of proprietors Horn & Hardart, who pioneered the North American use of the automat in their restaurants.

Schickele also invented the "dill piccolo" for playing sour notes, the "left-handed sewer flute", the "tromboon", the "lasso d'amore", the double-reed slide music stand, which he described as having "a range of major third and even less expressiveness," the "tuba mirum", a flexible tube filled with wine, and the "pastaphone", an uncooked tube of manicotti pasta played as a horn. And then there was the extensively described but (so far as is known) never demonstrated über klavier or super piano, with a keyboard ranging from sounds which only dogs can hear down to sounds which only whales can make. Sample sheet music was provided in P.D.Q.'s unauthorized autobiography, published in 1976. P.D.Q's Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons (1965) demonstrated the inherent musical qualities of everyday objects in ways not equally agreeable to all who listen to them. As of 2012, however, Schickele's invented instruments are strangely absent from a website documenting oddball hybrid and improvised musical instruments.^[6]

To some degree, Schickele's music written as P.D.Q. Bach has overshadowed Schickele's work as a "serious" composer.^[7][8]

The humorous aspect of Schickele's musical career came from his early interest in the music of Spike Jones, whose musical ensemble lampooned popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. While at Juilliard (1959) Schickele teamed with conductor Jorge Mester to present a humorous concert, which became an annual event at the college. In 1965, Schickele moved the concept to Town Hall and invited the public to attend. Vanguard Records released an album of that concert, and P. D. Q. Bach's career was launched.^[1]

References[link]

• Schickele, Peter (1976). The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-46536-9. 

External links[link]

• The Peter Schickele/P.D.Q. Bach Web Site
• Peter Schickele page at Theodore Presser Company
• Periodic Table of Musics
• The Peter Schickele Myspace (Maintained by Fan)

Audio links

• Peter Schickele interview
• "Composing Thoughts" radio interview

This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2011)

Tony Harrison (born 30 April 1937) is an English poet and playwright. He is noted for controversial works such as the poem V, as well as his versions of dramatic works: from ancient Greek (eg the tragedies Oresteia and Hecuba, from French Molière's The Misanthrope, from Middle English The Mysteries. He is also noted for his outspoken views, particularly against the Iraq War.^[1][2]

Biography[link]

Tony Harrison was born in Leeds, and despite his working class background, he received a scholarship to be educated at Leeds Grammar School which then gave him the opportunity to study at the University of Leeds, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics. For some years he has lived in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Works[link]

The material of much of his early poetry is provided by the memories of his working-class childhood. But he mastered classical learning without abandoning a relationship to where he came from, and he writes in a strong English voice that is learned in Latin and Greek sources yet without a hint of 'Oxbridge'. His poems and translations show a powerful command of rhyme and an expert adaptation of colloquial speech. His best known collections are The Loiners (1970) and The School of Eloquence and the Penguin Selected Poems. Perhaps the poem that best illustrates his range, energy and ability to bring the joy of life and the anger with what is made of it together, is his A Kumquat for John Keats, written in Florida when he was 42.

Cited from Professor Rick Rylance's analysis, focusing on "Book Ends" and "V", as well as the themes of political and personal division. "Tony Harrison is deservedly known as the poet of a distinctive kind of post-war experience. The son of a baker, raised in working-class Leeds, his work dramatises aspects of growing up in that life and the tension between it and the very different culture he entered through his educational success as a star pupil, first at Leeds Grammar School and then at university. Though often highly personal, his poetry explores themes representative of his generation's experience of increasing social mobility through education that was a feature of post-war life. Typically, this takes the form of meditations on exclusion, like that of Harrison's own family whose origins did not permit much cultural mobility." An example is the short poem on the cremation of his father, Marked with a D. In 1973 Harrison produced an adaptation of Molière's The Misanthrope for the Royal National Theatre.

His best-known work is the long poem V. (1985), written during the miners' strike of 1984-85, and describing a trip to see his parents' grave in a Leeds cemetery "now littered with beer cans and vandalised by obscene graffiti". The title has several possible interpretations: victory, versus, verse etc. Proposals to screen a filmed version of V. by Channel 4 in October 1987 drew howls of outrage from the tabloid press, some broadsheet journalists, and MPs, apparently concerned about the effects its "torrents of obscene language" and "streams of four-letter filth" would have on the nation's youth. Indeed, an Early Day Motion entitled "Television Obscenity" was proposed on 27 October 1987 by a group of Conservative MPs, who condemned Channel 4 and the Independent Broadcasting Authority. The motion was opposed by a single MP, Mr. Norman Buchan, who suggested that MPs had either failed to read or failed to understand (V.). The broadcast went ahead, and the brouhaha settled quickly after enough column inches had been written about the broadcast and reaction to the broadcast. Gerald Howarth said that Harrison was "Probably another bolshie poet wishing to impose his frustrations on the rest of us". When told of this, Harrison retorted that Howarth was "Probably another idiot MP wishing to impose his intellectual limitations on the rest of us". Thom Yorke, the frontman and lyricist of Radiohead, considers Harrison as one of his heroes, describing V as both "straightforward and wonderful"'.^{[citation needed]}

His adaption, The Mysteries, of the English Medieval Mystery plays, based on the York and Wakefield Mystery cycles, were first performed at the Royal National Theatre in 1985; in a promenade production in the Cottesloe Theatre. They were revived the following year, in the much larger space of the Lyceum Ballroom. Interviewed by Sir Melvyn Bragg for BBC television in 2012, Harrison said: "It was only when I did the Mystery Plays and got Northern actors doing verse, that I felt that I was reclaiming the energy of classical verse in the voices that it was created for."^[3]

In 1998, he wrote and directed a film, Prometheus, based on his poem of the same name, which links the myth of Prometheus - chained on a rock to have his liver eaten by the vulture Ethon as a punishment for the theft of fire - with the enchainment of workers in the Promethian industries - the closed coal mines of Yorkshire; the present day effects of heavy industry in Copşa Mică in Romania; to the "gas ovens" of Auschwitz, to Dresden and to Bomber Harris. The film involved driving a thirty foot golden statue of Prometheus from the industrial north of England to Greece, via Germany and a number of eastern European countries.

His translation of Hecuba (2005), which emphasised the relevance of Euripides' drama to the Iraq War, was poorly received. His play Fram debuted in 2008 at the Royal National Theatre in London.

Bibliography[link]

Poetry[link]

• The Loiners (1970)
• From the School of Eloquence and Other Poems (1981)
• Continuous (50 Sonnets from the School of Eloquence and Other Poems) (1981)
• A Kumquat for John Keats (1981)
• V (1985)
• Dramatic Verse,1973-85 (1985)
• Square Rounds (1992)
• The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992)
• Black Daisies for the Bride (1993)
• The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film/Poems (1995)
• Laureate's Block and Other Occasional Poems (2000)
• Under the Clock (2005)
• Selected Poems (2006)
• Collected Poems (2007)
• Collected Film Poetry (2007)

Pamphlets[link]

• Earthworks (1964)
• Newcastle is Peru (1969)
• Bow Down (1977)
• Looking up (1979)
• The Fire Gap (1985)
• Anno Forty Two: Seven New Poems (1987)
• Ten Sonnets from The school of Eloquence (1987)
• A cold Coming (1991)
• A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan (1994)

Film and television[link]

• The Blue Bird: lyrics for George Cukor film. (1976).
• Arctic Paradise: verse commentary for film in series The World About Us, producer: Andree Molyneux for BBC Two. (1981).
• The Oresteia: translation for National Theatre production, filmed for Channel Four television. (October 1983).
• The Big H: musical drama, producer: Andree Molyneux, for BBC Two, (December 1984).
• The Mysteries: adaption of medieval English mystery plays for the National Theatre, produced by Bill Bryden and Derek Bailey, filmed for Channel Four television. December 1985, January 1986).
• Loving Memory four poem-films, producer Peter Symes for BBC Two.
  • Letters in Rock: (July 1987)
  • Mimmo Perrella Non è Piu: (July 1987)
  • Muffled Bells: (July 1987)
  • Cheating the Void: (August 1987)
• Yan Tan Tethera: opera recorded for BBC Two and Radio 3. (1987).
• v.: poem filmed for television, producer Richard Eyre for Channel Four. (1987).
• The Blasphemers' Banquet: poem-film producer Peter Symes for BBC One. (1989).
• The Gaze of the Gorgon: poem-film for television. (1992).
• Prometheus: television film, also directed by the author. (1997).

Theatre and opera[link]

• Aikin Mata: adaption of Aristophanes's Lysistrata for performance in Nigeria (March, 1964).
• The Misanthrope version of Molière's Le Misanthrope for the National Theatre played at the Old Vic (20 February, 1973).
• Phaedra Britannica version of Racine's Phèdre for the National Theatre played at the Old Vic (3 September, 1975).
• Bow Down (with Harrison Birtwistle) at the National Theatre (4 July, 1977).

About Tony Harrison and his poetry[link]

• Astley, Neil, ed. (1991). Tony Harrison. Bloodaxe Critical Anthologies. 1. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books. ISBN 1-85224-079-2. 
• Byrne, Sandie, ed. (1997). Tony Harrison: Loiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-1981-8430-1. 
• Rutter, Carol (1995). Permanently Bard. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books. ISBN 1-85224-262-0. 
• Sheehan, Sean. The poetry of Tony Harrison. Focus On. London: Greenwich Exchange. ISBN 978-1-906075-15-6. 
• Spencer, Luke (1994). The Poetry of Tony Harrison. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. ISBN 0-7450-1588-3. 

Literary Prizes[link]

• 1972 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (for The Loiners 1970)
• 1983 European Poetry Translation Prize (Aeschylus's The Oresteia 1981)
• 1982 Whitbread Prize for Poetry (The Gaze of the Gorgon 1992)
• 2004 Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award
• 2007 Wilfred Owen Poetry Award^[4]
• 2009 PEN/Pinter prize, inaugural award.^[5]
• 2010 European Prize for Literature

References[link]

External links[link]

Quotations related to Tony Harrison at Wikiquote

• Tony Harrison on Bloodaxe Books website
• Tony Harrison at Contemporary Writers
• Tony Harrison on the Faber and Faber website
• Guardian newspaper interview (March 2007)
• University of Leeds profile
• New Statesman profile (April 1999)

Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich (September 26, 1930 – September 17, 1966) was a German lyric tenor, famed for his singing of the Mozart repertory and Italian and German opera and lieder. He died in an accident when he was only 35. In a survey published in the BBC Music Magazine of April 2008, Wunderlich was voted the fourth greatest tenor of all time.^[1]

Biography[link]

Fritz Wunderlich was born in Kusel in the Palatinate. His mother was a violinist and his father was a choir-master. For a short time, the family kept the inn "Emrichs Bräustübl". Fritz's father lost his job due to pressure imposed upon him by local Nazis, in addition to suffering from a severe battlefield injury. He committed suicide when Fritz was five years old.

The story regarding Wunderlich's discovery parallels many of his contemporaries (notably Nicolai Gedda and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). As a young man Wunderlich worked in a bakery. At the insistence of neighbors and passers-by who had witnessed his musical gifts and beautiful voice, Wunderlich decided to begin studies in music. He managed to obtain a scholarship in order to pursue his studies at the Freiburg Music Academy where he studied French horn and voice.

Wunderlich was soon noted as a brilliant young tenor, especially in Mozartian roles, but he later expanded his reach to the full range of the lyric tenor repertoire.

He occasionally sang minor Wagner roles such as the Steuermann in The Flying Dutchman, Walther von der Vogelweide in Tannhäuser, and the Hirt in Tristan und Isolde.

Recordings[link]

It was the fashion during Wunderlich's career for German theaters to perform operas in the local rather than original language. Therefore, most of his recordings of the standard operatic repertoire are sung in German, including Verdi's Rigoletto and Don Carlos. (He sang his recording of the Verdi Requiem in distinctly Germanic Latin.) Wunderlich achieved the highest distinction within the German repertory. Of special importance is a recording of Mozart's The Magic Flute, conducted by Karl Böhm, in which Wunderlich gave a critically acclaimed performance as Prince Tamino,^[2] opposite baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the role of Papageno.

Wunderlich's crystal-clear voice and intelligent, restrained interpretation also led him to impressive renditions of the Lieder cycles of Schubert and Schumann with pianist Hubert Giesen. His famous recording of Schumann's Dichterliebe remains a gold standard of this genre. Many tenors since have emulated Wunderlich's interpretation of this cycle.

Another notable recording he left is J. S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio, with fellow singers Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, and Franz Crass, conducted by Karl Richter. Also astonishing is an album of pre-Bach sacred songs, featuring music of Schütz, Telemann, Buxtehude, and other less well-known composers.

At the time of his death, he had been recording Haydn's The Creation, with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Wiener Singverein under Herbert von Karajan, the other soloists being Christa Ludwig, Gundula Janowitz, Walter Berry and Fischer-Dieskau. Wunderlich had completed recording his arias, but Werner Krenn was hired to record the recitatives. Several recorded live performances of Wunderlich singing the whole part, under Karajan, survive.

Available videos include a full-length performance (in German) as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, and a recital of operatic arias.

Accidental death[link]

Wunderlich's promising career was cut short by an accident while he was on a hunting vacation (his hobbies included hunting, guns, and fast cars). He fell from a stairway in a friend's country house in Oberderdingen near Maulbronn, and died in the University Clinic of Heidelberg just days before his 36th birthday. He is buried in Munich's Waldfriedhof cemetery.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Website of the Fritz Wunderlich Gesellschaft
• Biography from Bach-Cantatas.com
• Wunderlich at Allmusic.com
• Wunderlich fan's comprehensive website