Brecht at the Opera: The Significance of Operatic Fragments for His Oeuvre

FAIN: FT-53163-05

Joy Haslam Calico
Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN 37203-2416)

I seek an NEH Summer Stipend for the necessary archival research to complete my book "Brecht at the Opera," in which I argue opera's centrality for the playwright's work from several perspectives. Although Brecht finished only three operas between 1926 and 1956, he worked on twenty others. These fragments served as laboratories, and their examination produces a new context for understanding his completed works in other genres as well as the development of his theatrical theories. The chapter for which I seek funding examines three incomplete opera projects from his American exile period: an all-African American adaptation of 'Threepenny Opera' (1942), 'Goliath' (1943), and 'Journey of the God of Luck' (1945).

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