Tomás Marco stands as a national icon, a restless and remarkably engaging figure in the country’s cultural scene. A composer celebrated worldwide, he carries a diverse catalog across genres, a seasoned essayist, and a veteran of countless artistic battles. Music has always been, and continues to be, a central thread in the fabric of daily life.
Marco returns to the mission of spreading knowledge, presenting an extraordinary work: the history of opera through the entire twentieth century, from its traditional roots to the postmodern era, and the lasting traces carried into the twenty-first century.
His survey spans schools, nations, and composers, offering readers surprising discoveries and, above all, inviting them to explore dozens of works often overlooked outside the standard repertoire. Marco communicates with passion about this century of a captivating form, drawing on deep knowledge, clear wisdom, and a remarkable talent for storytelling.
The narrative begins with the dissolution of opera in the nineteenth century. He maps the models that formed the foundations for a growing evolution in the latter part of the century across Italian, German, and French landscapes. Figures like Wagner and Verdi were pivotal, advancing the art and introducing innovations that would shape every element of opera as spectacle. The libretto, progressively gaining significance, allows for new and diverse interpretations—an intricate structure that, alongside orchestration and stage direction, experiences transformative shifts. Wagner’s influence here marks a decisive turning point between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A notable achievement of Marco’s approach is his refusal to cast opera in a single, linear progression. He explains the genre’s richness by revealing the simultaneous coexistence of multiple currents. He shows how some writers continued to publish successfully within traditional frames while others took risks that initially faltered but later found solid ground in new circuits. Changes that meet resistance at first can still prevail when the author’s quality overcomes prejudice.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, a genuine revolution gathered momentum, with the premiere of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902 marking a spark rather than a sole cause. The shifts proved more intricate, affecting many countries. In Italy, Puccini’s prominence and the Verismo movement mattered, while the Germanic region witnessed decisive premieres like Salomé and the broader impact of works by Leos Janáček. The case of Ethel Smyth, a composer and suffrage activist who produced six operas, highlights voices previously underrepresented in major repertoires. The city of Paris emerges as a central hub of modernity, influencing global currents until post-World War II shifts to New York.
Key early twentieth-century names include Paul Dukas and Maurice Ravel in France, with the Group of Six shaping a patroned, forward-looking scene, and in other lands Karol Szymanowski, Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, and Enrique Granados contributing essential strands. The avant-garde stream gains momentum through Arnold Schönberg and works like Erwartung and the unfinished Moses und Aron. Alban Berg follows, delivering Wozzeck, a touchstone for a new opera’s language and impact that extends into the present. Other major voices—Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Honegger—are discussed alongside Sergei Prokofiev, broadening the tapestry of the century.
Socio-political forces, as always, weave through the art. Marco examines the shadows of Nazism and Stalinism and their toxic effect on opera, with Dmitri Shostakovich and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk exemplifying the era. The American lyrical expansion of the late nineteenth century, through figures like Amy Beach and George Gershwin, is noted, while global currents reach Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and beyond, with composers such as Carlos Gomes and other regional voices enriching the dialogue.
Throughout the century, writers influenced by serial avant-garde movements, including figures like Giancarlo Menotti, Benjamin Britten, the Darmstadt circle, and artists such as Heino Eller, Berio, and Rota, push opera into new forms. The Darmstadt circle’s emblematic Die Soldate becomes a symbol of modern staging, while Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, and György Kurtág expand the sonic vocabulary. Movements such as minimalism and spectralism, championed by Nyman, Glass, and others, are considered within a broader arc. The argument culminates with a confident assertion: composing and performing opera is not a relic of the past but an art with a future and ongoing relevance, a refrain echoed by writers born in the late twentieth century who insist on a living, evolving craft [Marco, 2020].