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Virtual Opera, or Opera between the Ears

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Nicholls
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Abstract

A number of authors, including John Covach and especially Edward Macan, have investigated the links between art music and progressive rock. This article builds on and extends such work by positing, defining, discussing and dissecting a hybrid genre I term virtual opera. Exemplified by such albums as The Who's Tommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973), Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) and Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage (1979), each of which is subjected to detailed examination, virtual operas find their ideal site of performance between the ears of individual listeners, rather than on stage or screen. In each case, the aural and visual dimensions of the albums combine to create multi-layered musico-dramatic narratives, freed from the usual performance constraints associated with either opera or rock.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 129 , Issue 1 , 2004 , pp. 100 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 2004

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References

I am grateful to the staff and postgraduate communities at the Department of Music, University of Southampton, for their comments on this article – whether in this form or in its other incarnation as an oral presentation. I am particularly grateful to Bastien Terraz for his insightful remarks concerning Tommy, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and The Wall, which helped me considerably in refining my own views; and to Nick Cook, for his thoughtful and pertinent comments on an early draft. Lyrics from Tommy and Quadrophenia are © Fabulous Music Limited, and are used by permission. Lyrics from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway are reproduced by kind permission of T. Banks/M. Rutherford/P. Gabriel/P. Collins/S. Hackett published by: Genesis Music Ltd/Hit and Run Music Pub. Ltd/EMI Music Pub. Lyrics by Frank Zappa are © The Zappa Family Trust. Lyrics by The Buggles are © Warner Chappell Music.Google Scholar

1 On methodology in popular music scholarship, see Middleton, Richard, Studying Popular Music (Milton Keynes, 1990); Allan F. Moore, Rock: The Primary Text (Milton Keynes, 1993; 2nd edn, Aldershot, 2001); David Brackett, Interpreting Popular Music (Cambridge, 1995; 2nd edn, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000). For a sociological approach, see Frith, Simon, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge, MA, 1998). Examples of genre studies include Robert Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Hanover, NH, 1993), and Adam Krims, Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity (Cambridge, 2000). The band- or artist-based approach is exemplified by Walter Everett, The Beatles as Musicians: ‘Revolver’ through ‘The Anthology‘ (New York, 1999). To provide a further list of publications beyond those directly relevant to the present article is quite beyond its scope: for full bibliographies, see the books cited above, as well as those sources detailed in subsequent footnotes.Google Scholar

2 Spicer, Mark S., ‘Large-Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis’, Expression in Pop-Rock Music, ed. Walter Everett (New York, 2000), 77–111 (p. 77).Google Scholar

3 Brackett, Interpreting Popular Music, ix.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.Google Scholar

5 See, for instance, John Covach, ‘Progressive Rock, “Close to the Edge”, and the Boundaries of Style’, Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, ed. Covach and Graeme M. Boone (New York, 1997), 3–31; idem, ‘Jazz-Rock? Rock-Jazz? Stylistic Crossover in Late-1970s American Progressive Rock’, Expression in Pop-Rock Music, ed. Everett, 113–33; idem, ‘Echolyn and American Progressive Rock’, American Rock and the Classical Music Tradition, Contemporary Music Review, 18/iv (2000), ed. Covach and Walter Everett, 13–61; Progressive Rock Reconsidered, ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson (New York, 2002); Moore, ‘Progressive Styles and Issues’, Rock, Chapter 3 (pp. 64–118); and Spicer, ‘Large-Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis’.Google Scholar

6 Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture (New York, 1997).Google Scholar

7 Ibid., ix, x, 4.Google Scholar

8 It should also be stated explicitly that I do not attempt here to discuss every aspect of the works in question; nor do I follow many of the orthodoxies of approach adopted by writers other than Macan. Rather, I attempt primarily to define the parameters of the genre seemingly inhabited by the works under discussion, and to draw parallels between them and certain practices in art music.Google Scholar

9 Macan, Rocking the Classics, 40.Google Scholar

10 The Who, Tommy, original LP recording (Track Records 613 013/613 014), 1969, and Quadrophenia, original LP recording (Track Records 2406–110/2406–111), 1973; Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, original LP recording (Charisma Records CG 1/2), 1974; Frank Zappa, Joe's Garage, Act I, original LP recording (Zappa Records/CBS 86101), 1979, and Joe's Garage, Acts II & III, original LP recording (Zappa Records/CBS 84019/84020), 1979.Google Scholar

11 For an interesting, if flawed, overview of rock opera – which coincidentally covers a number of the topics and, indeed, works discussed here – see Elicker, Martina, ‘Rock Opera – Opera on the Rocks?‘, Word and Music Studies, 4/i (October 2002), 299–314.Google Scholar

12 The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel (Cambridge, MA, 1986), 562.Google Scholar

13 For a discussion of the ‘sound-box’, see Moore, Rock, 120–6. Moore defines the ‘sound-box’ as a ‘“virtual textural space”, envisaged as an empty cube of finite dimensions, changing with respect to real time (almost like an abstract, three-dimensional television screen)‘ (p. 121). In this article, and especially in the next sentence, I imagine the ideal sound-box as equating to the finite (but three-dimensional) space created in the listener's head by stereo reproduction through a pair of earphones.Google Scholar

14 The issue of staged and/or filmed productions of virtual operas is discussed below in the section entitled ‘Entr'acte 2‘.Google Scholar

15 On the use of narrative in selected concept albums (including Tommy and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), see Moore, Rock, 96–8.Google Scholar

16 Richard Barnes, ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy’, booklet accompanying The Who, Tommy, remastered CD version (Polydor 531 043–2), 1996, pp. [5]–[8]. The quotation appears on p. [5]. The present discussion of Tommy's basic premiss is based on Barnes's text. For considerable contextual detail, and an interpretation of Tommy's plot that differs in part from that offered here, see Marsh, Dave, Before I Get Old: The Story of The Who (London, 1983), 308–45. See also Elicker, ‘Rock Opera’, esp. pp. 305–7.Google Scholar

17 Throughout this article, operatic terminology – aria, arietta, duet, etc. – is employed deliberately, so as to draw attention to the similarity of type and function between the ‘numbers’ of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century opera and the songs (or tracks) of the albums discussed.Google Scholar

18 Barnes, ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy’, [5].Google Scholar

19 ‘A Quick One While He's Away’ is the last track on side 2 of A Quick One (1966), and ‘Rael 1 and 2‘ the last track on side 2 of The Who Sell Out (1967). For further details, see Barnes, Richard, The Who: Maximum R & B (London, 1982; repr. 2000), 44, 50. As a result of either accident or design, Rael was the name given by Genesis to the principal character of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.Google Scholar

20 Arguably, Tommy is in part a semi-autobiographical statement by Townshend. Although aspects of the plot are discussed here and in ‘Entr'acte 2‘ below, a brief synopsis may be useful at this point. Following a traumatic incident in his youth, Tommy becomes deaf, dumb and blind. Various cures are attempted, but to no avail. Finally, by smashing the mirror into which Tommy habitually stares, his mother frees him from his sensorial prison. As quasi-messiah, Tommy embarks on a campaign (which ultimately fails) to enlighten mankind by exposing his followers to the sensorial deprivation he had himself experienced.Google Scholar

21 Townshend, quoted in Barnes, ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy’, [5]. The three faculties of which Tommy is deprived – hearing, speech and sight – are of course those of the ‘Three Wise Monkeys’ ('Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil') so often represented in ornaments, etc., and originally emanating from the Chinese Buddhist Vadjra cult (seventh century or earlier). One such ornament can be seen on Tommy's armchair in the ‘Gather your wits and hold on fast’ illustration (LP libretto, pp. [4]–[5]; CD brochure, pp. [14]–[15]) and is the basis for the ‘theme of the sermon’ illustration that appears later (LP libretto, p. [10]; CD brochure, p. [22]).Google Scholar

22 Throughout this article, individual tracks are identified by both their LP and CD locations. For LPs, the format is usually side/track; and for CDs track or disc/track. Timings are given by reference to the CD recordings.Google Scholar

23 There are, as ever, exceptions: that which most readily springs to mind is Queen's ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, in which recitative-like textures appear at several points.Google Scholar

24 Thanks to Bastien Terraz for this observation.Google Scholar

25 There are occasional differences between the versions of the lyrics given in the LP and CD booklets, as well as between those printed sources and the words that are actually sung. The lyrics quoted in this article will therefore attempt to reconcile any such differences, and – where appropriate – highlight any changes made. Thus, at this point, the libretto has ‘twitch’ rather than the ‘wink’ sung by Daltrey.Google Scholar

26 The possibility of intentional number symbolism should perhaps be mentioned at this point: ‘Rise’ is sung 13 times; the digits of ‘1921’ – why this year rather than any other? – when added together also total 13. This may be coincidence, but given that both events are essentially associated with ‘diabolical’ acts on the part of Tommy's parents – his father's murder of his mother's lover, and his mother's smashing of Tommy's mirror – it may also be intentional. This begs the question whether further number symbolism is employed in Tommy; but the answer would need to be reserved for a much longer study of the work than that attempted here.Google Scholar

27 The actual structure is: Verse 1 – Chorus / Verse 2 – Chorus / middle section / modified Verse 3.Google Scholar

28 For the last verse, Daltrey sings a counter-melody.Google Scholar

29 The overall structure of ‘Sally Simpson’ is therefore: Verse 1 – Chorus A / Verse 2 – Chorus A / Verse 3 – Chorus Bi / Verse 4 – Chorus A / Verse 5 – Chorus Bii / Verse 6 – Chorus A.Google Scholar

30 However, some of the music for ‘Sparks’ and ‘Underture’ originated in the earlier ‘Rael 1 and 2‘. See Barnes, The Who, 50.Google Scholar

31 It should also be noted that in durational terms ‘Underture’ is placed almost exactly at the midpoint of the work, and therefore acts as a counterbalance to the ‘Overture’. Thanks to Bastien Terraz for this observation.Google Scholar

32 Against these lines, Tommy – in the background – can be heard singing ‘I heard it / I saw it / I won't say nothing to no one’, etc.Google Scholar

33 It is important to record here the essential irrelevance of the pinball thread that is woven through Tommy – and which gave the work its best-known number – for, as Richard Barnes points out, it was included only in order to encourage a favourable review from influential rock journalist (and pinball fan) Nic Cohn. See Barnes, ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy,‘ [5]–[6].Google Scholar

34 The illustrations to the original LP package are all transferred to the CD package, though in some cases their relative positions are changed: for instance, the ‘pinball’ illustration on pp. [6]–[7] of the LP libretto appears on the inside of the CD case rear (i.e. behind the CD itself). Beyond this, there are three principal differences in the packaging of the two versions: (1) the CD brochure includes Richard Barnes's introductory essay; (2) the obverse side of the CD is illustrated by the programme cover for The Who's performance of Tommy at New York's Metropolitan Opera House in June 1970; (3) the main cover image of the ‘diamond-punctured globe’ in the CD version is as McInnerney intended it: i.e. minus the faces of The Who that had been inserted into some of the diamonds for the LP cover at the insistence of the original record company.Google Scholar

35 The word ‘quadrophenia’ does not appear in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. But the clear implication is that it represents a quadripartite form of schizophrenia, which term is itself derived from the Greek for ‘split mind’, and is colloquially understood as being ‘a mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements’ (The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th edn, 1235).Google Scholar

36 The total of 33 does not include the front and back covers of the album, as these are somewhat obliquely related to the main narrative. The central character (whose real name is presumably James) is called both ‘Jim’ and ‘Jimmy’ in the libretto; the compound form is used here.Google Scholar

37 Prose quotations are taken from the ‘autobiographical essay’ on the inside front cover of the LP sleeve. In the CD reissue, this is printed on pp. [2]–[4] of the accompanying booklet.Google Scholar

38 For contextual detail, and both an exposition and an interpretation of Quadrophenia's plot, see Marsh, Before I Get Old, 412–33.Google Scholar

39 In fact, ‘the sound’ also seems a very close cousin of what John Lennon had originally envisioned in 1966 for The Beatles' ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, the final track on Revolver: ‘I'd imagined in my head that in the background you would hear thousands of monks chanting.‘ See Miles, Barry, The Beatles – a Diary (London, 1998), 213.Google Scholar

40 Jim/Jimmy (i.e. Pete Townshend) on Keith Moon: ‘a drummer who used to play with his arms waving about in the air like a lunatic’; on John Entwistle: ‘His bass sounded like a bleeding VC10'; on Townshend himself: ‘a skinny geezer with a big nose who twirled his arm like a windmill'; and on The Who: ‘They played Tamla stuff and R & B. They could have been perfect if they'd played Blue Beat as well.‘Google Scholar

41 For an alternative reading, which includes the possibility of the Godfather being Townshend (and by implication the Punk being Jim/Jimmy), see Marsh, Before I Get Old, 424.Google Scholar

42 The α, β, γ, δ and ∊ motifs are discussed below.Google Scholar

43 See Marsh, Before I Get Old, 419–20.Google Scholar

44 Barnes, The Who, 103.Google Scholar

45 ‘Oh, let me flow into the ocean, / Let me get back to the sea, / Let me be stormy and let me be calm, / Let the tide in / And set me free. // I'm flowing under bridges / Then flying through the sky, / I'm travelling down cold metal, / Just a tear in a baby's eye.‘Google Scholar

46 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar, original LP recording (MCA Records, MCXS 5011/5012), 1970.Google Scholar

47 Deep Purple (with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Malcolm Arnold), Concerto for Rock Group and Orchestra, CD reissue (EMI Records, CDP 7 948862), 1970.Google Scholar

48 Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick, original LP recording (Chrysalis Records, CHR 1003), 1972. Both Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play are worthy of separate attention in carving out a further hybrid form that brings together song cycle, symphonic poem and cantata into a continuous lyrical setting.Google Scholar

49 Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus, original LP recording (Island Records, ILPS 9155), 1971. Macan's discussion (and musical analysis) of ‘Tarkus’, together with his interpretation of the meaning of the plot and his observations on alternative readings of the work, are in Macan, Rocking the Classics, 87–95.Google Scholar

50 Genesis, Foxtrot, original LP recording (Charisma Records, CAS 1058), 1972; Genesis, Selling England by the Pound, original LP recording (Charisma Records, CAS 1074), 1973; Rush, 2112, original LP recording (Mercury Records 534 626–2), 1976. Thanks to Gayle Sherwood for drawing my attention to 2112.Google Scholar

51 For further discussion of the relation between Genesis's music and its presentation – both on stage and in its album packaging – see ‘Act 2, scene i’ below. And for a detailed and penetrating analysis of the ‘one-man opera’ ‘Supper's Ready’ and other Genesis numbers, see Spicer, ‘Large-Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis,‘ 77–111.Google Scholar

52 On 2112 see Durrell S. Bowman, ‘“Let Them All Make Their Own Music”: Individualism, Rush, and the Progressive/Hard Rock Alloy, 1976–77‘, Progressive Rock Reconsidered, ed. Holm-Hudson, 183–218, esp. pp. 191–201.Google Scholar

53 It could be argued that both ‘Duchess’ (LP 1/2) and the ‘I’ of ‘Guide Vocal’ (LP 1/3) are separate entities. However, the narration in ‘Duchess’ is in the third person (e.g. ‘Times were good, / She never thought about the future, she just did what she would'), while the voice in ‘Guide Vocal’ is anonymous. In addition, it is unclear whether Duke himself is either (or neither) the ‘I’ or the ‘he’ in the lyrics to ‘Man of our Times’ (LP 1/4).Google Scholar

54 Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon, original LP recording (Harvest Records SHVL 804), 1973; Wish You Were Here, original LP recording (Harvest Records SHYL 814), 1975; Animals, original LP recording (Harvest Records SHVL 815), 1977; The Wall, original LP recording (Harvest Records, SHDW 411), 1979.Google Scholar

55 Macan, Rocking the Classics, 78.Google Scholar

56 For general comments on these two albums, see Mabbett, Andy, The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd (London, 1995). For extremely detailed, and remarkably erudite, analyses, see Rose, Phil, Which One's Pink? (Burlington, ON, n.d.).Google Scholar

57 For Macan's analysis, see Rocking the Classics, 112–24.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., 114.Google Scholar

59 Although not directly relevant to the topic under discussion in this article, a comparison between the ‘group autobiographies’ presented in Quadrophenia and The Wall might prove interesting.Google Scholar

60 In the case of The Wall, ‘[Roger] Waters originally conceived the stage show and film at the same time as the record.‘ See Mabbett, The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd, 76.Google Scholar

61 Barnes, ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy’, [8].Google Scholar

62 Ibid., [7].Google Scholar

63 Ibid., [7], [8].Google Scholar

64 For further details of Tommy's appearances on stage and screen, see Barnes, The Who, 49–50, 96–106. Quadrophenia was toured by The Who, before being filmed by Franc Roddam in 1979 and first staged in August 2001 by Hampshire Youth Theatre. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was given 102 semi-staged performances during Genesis's world tour of 1974–5, and has more recently been revived by tribute band The Musical Box (who are discussed below). Jesus Christ Superstar was given its stage première in October 1971, and filmed in 1973.Google Scholar

65 The reference is to the verse in the Gospel according to John, which states (in the translation of The New English Bible): ‘Now at the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, not yet used for burial.‘Google Scholar

66 Barnes, ‘Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy,‘ [6].Google Scholar

67 Ibid.Google Scholar

68 Ibid. See also Barnes, The Who, 50, 96–7.Google Scholar

69 Quadrophenia (1979), director Franc Roddam, screenplay by Dave Humphries, Martin Stellman and Franc Roddam. Released on video by 4 Front Video (051 835 3).Google Scholar

70 This particular interpretation seems to be confirmed by the performed reprise in ‘1921’ of certain of the printed lyrics. After the mother and father have sung the (concluding) printed lines, ‘Never tell a soul / What you know is the Truth’, the father (rather than the lover) repeats the opening quatrain of the song ('I've got a feeling twenty one / Is going to be a good year'); he then moves immediately to his own tercet, ‘I had no reason to be over optimistic.’ Thus the father's earlier tercet ('So you [i.e. the lover] think 21 is going to be a good year'), responding to the lover's opening words, is now omitted. The subsequent instrumental passage is concluded by the single line ‘What about the boy?’Google Scholar

71 Tommy (1975), director Ken Russell, screenplay by Ken Russell. Released on video by 4 Front Video (057 432 3).Google Scholar

72 The contextualization here is typical of Russell at his most playful: in narrative terms, Tommy's own holiday camp (LP 4/5; CD 23) becomes palindromically justified through his childhood experiences at the fictional Bernie's Holiday Camp, itself (apparently) a composite of the popular British Butlin's Camps, the computerized Premium Bond winner selector, ERNIE (as in ‘good old ERNIE’ on Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick) and Tommy's own ‘wicked Uncle Ernie’ of ‘Fiddle About’ (LP 3/2; CD 12). The Butlin's Redcoats become Bernie's Greencoats, etc., and all of Russell's visual imagery is drawn from the norms of his model. Indeed, the holiday-camp sequences in the film version of Tommy appear to have been filmed at an actual Butlin's camp.Google Scholar

73 For the original drawing – Swanwick's ‘The Dream’ – and Peter Gabriel's notes on it, see Gallo, Armando, Genesis: I Know What I Like (Los Angeles, 1980), 57. At Gabriel's request, Swanwick subsequently expanded the drawing to create the version that appears as the album cover.Google Scholar

74 For a complementary description of Genesis on stage, see Spicer, ‘Large-Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis’, 79. Photographs of Gabriel's masks and costumes appear in Gallo, Genesis, 77, 79. Gallo's book contains a host of additional pertinent images, including those on pp. 38–9, 50, 54–5, 58–9, 64, 65, 75 (upper), 76, 77, 78, 79, 80–1 and back cover. See also many of the images in the booklet accompanying Genesis, Archive 1967–1975, Charisma CDBOX6 (1998).Google Scholar

75 Quotations extracted from the publicity brochure for The Musical Box's Thirtieth Anniversary Tour of Selling England by the Pound (autumn 2003). For further details of The Musical Box, see <www.themusicalbox.net>..' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Quotations+extracted+from+the+publicity+brochure+for+The+Musical+Box's+Thirtieth+Anniversary+Tour+of+Selling+England+by+the+Pound+(autumn+2003).+For+further+details+of+The+Musical+Box,+see+.>Google Scholar

76 The description of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway as a ‘one-man rock opera’ is taken from Covach, ‘Progressive Rock, “Close to the Edge”, and the Boundaries of Style’, 10. For images from live performances of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, see Gallo, Genesis, 67, 80–1, 82–3. For a live recording, plus additional images, see Genesis, Archive 1967–1975.Google Scholar

77 The plot summary given here is a much-précised version of Peter Gabriel's extended prose narrative, which occupies the two inner pages of the LP album sleeve. This prose narrative also appears as pp. [1]–[4] of the ‘Definitive Edition Remaster’ CD brochure.Google Scholar

78 Sadly, the ‘Definitive Edition Remaster’ CD of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway fails to reproduce all of these materials. Specifically lost are the inner sleeve photographs, the disc label photograph and the abstract sleeve designs.Google Scholar

79 Earlier examples of borrowings from (or elaborations of) extant sources include ‘Supper's Ready’ (Foxtrot) and ‘The Battle of Epping Forest’ (Selling England by the Pound): see Gallo, Genesis, 48–50 and 160 respectively, and – for ‘Supper's Ready’ – Spicer, ‘Large-Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis,’ esp. p. 104, n. 8. Elsewhere in Genesis's output, one finds less extensive references to existing materials: for instance, the three verses of ‘The Cinema Show’ (Selling England by the Pound) refer respectively to Juliet, Romeo and Tiresias.Google Scholar

80 For additional information on these connections, see The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. Meyer Howard Abrams (4th edn, New York, 1979), ii, 830–1; and Betty Radice, Who's Who in the Ancient World (London, 1973), 62–3. For the original source, see Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, trans. Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare (London, 1912), i, [Chapter 25], 403–9.Google Scholar

81 See Radice, Who's Who in the Ancient World, 62–3, and Abrams, The Norton Anthology, 830–1.Google Scholar

82 Keats seems to have been a favourite source for Gabriel. A further reference to the poet's work is found in the title of ‘Watcher of the Skies’, the opening track on Foxtrot, the apparent source being a line from Keat's 1816 sonnet ‘On First Looking into Chapman's Homer’: ‘Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: / Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken.‘Google Scholar

83 Lilith was also the first wife of Adam. Rather confusingly (given her later identification as a succubus), she refused to submit to her partner and fled from him. On the strength of that, she became a feminist icon in the mid-1970s. The blindness of The Lamb’s Lilith is not replicated in any of the potential sources, and is perhaps therefore an attempt by Gabriel to link her with other mythological visionaries, such as Tiresias (cf. ‘The Cinema Show’ from Selling England by the Pound).Google Scholar

84 Thanks to Bastien Terraz for drawing my attention to several of these subtle cross references.Google Scholar

85 ‘In the Cage’ lasts 08′ 13″, but there is a distinct (silent) break from 07′ 21″ until 07′ 24″, at which point completely new, unrelated, instrumental material appears to conclude the track. There is then a further break before the start of the subsequent track, ‘The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging’ (LP 1/6; CD 1/6).Google Scholar

86 Although the LP tracks and lyrics (along with the lyrics in the CD booklet) make it quite clear that ‘Broadway Melody of 1974’ commences with the words ‘Echoes of the Broadway Everglades’ and the distinctive, rhythmic, double iteration of a bass pedal note, for some inexplicable reason both CD versions – the ‘Definitive Edition Remaster’ plus that appearing on Archive 1967–75 – are tracked in such a way that this material is in fact included in track 2, ‘Fly on a Windshield’, respectively at 02′ 45″ and 02′ 51″. In each of the CD versions, therefore, ‘Broadway Melody of 1974’ becomes a brief, 30-second-or-so, instrumental link, robbed of its defining lyrics. The recapitulation of the ‘Broadway Melody’ material in ‘Lilywhite Lilith’ occurs in the ‘Definitive Edition Remaster’ CD at 01′ 46″, and in the Archive version at 01' 53“.Google Scholar

87 On the complementary view of Joe's Garage (and also Thing-Fish) as ‘music dramas’, see Jonathan W. Bernard, ‘Listening to Zappa’, American Rock and the Classical Music Tradition, ed. Covach and Everett, 63–103 (p. 90).Google Scholar

88 The subsequent CD reissue (RCD 10530/31) has only two discs, contained in a single package.Google Scholar

89 Ben Watson, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play (New York, 1993; repr. 1995), 372.Google Scholar

90 Joe's Garage, libretto to Act 1, p. [1].Google Scholar

91 Ibid.Google Scholar

92 Joe's Garage, Act 1, inside sleeve note. See also Watson, Frank Zappa, 370–1. There are distinct parallels here with the plot of Rush's earlier, and similarly dystopian, 2112, discussed above.Google Scholar

93 Joe's Garage, libretto to Act 1, p. [2].Google Scholar

94 Watson, Frank Zappa, 372.Google Scholar

95 Ibid., 366.Google Scholar

96 Ibid., 366.Google Scholar

97 A specific example of such pragmatism on Stockhausen's part is the instrumentation for wind orchestra of Luzifers Tanz (1983), the third scene of Samstag aus Licht (1981–3), which was predicated on a commission from the University of Michigan Symphony Band.Google Scholar

98 Watson, Frank Zappa, 366.Google Scholar

99 For an alternative discussion of these questions, see Elicker, ‘Rock Opera’, 310–11.Google Scholar

100 This and the subsequent quotations are taken from Joel Cohen, liner notes to Le roman de Fauvel (Erato 4509–96392–2), 1995, 7–8. Cohen's short article also serves as the basis for much of the commentary in this section. Thanks to Michael Lawlor for drawing my attention to the parallels between the Roman de Fauvel and virtual opera.Google Scholar

101 Cohen, liner notes to Le roman de Fauvel, 7–8.Google Scholar

102 Marsh, Before I Get Old, 434. On Quadrophenia's mixed reception in early concert performances, see pp. 427–8.Google Scholar

103 Cohen, liner notes to Le roman de Fauvel, 8.Google Scholar

104 Macan, Rocking the Classics, 152. My reservations regarding Macan's characterization are ultimately premissed in my own background, c.1970, as a culturally ignorant (albeit grammar-school educated) working-class teenager from the English Midlands. That I subsequently morphed into an archetypal example of Macan's ‘essentially homogenous’ audience is irrelevant to my contemporaneous enthusiasm for the music discussed in this article.Google Scholar

105 For some sense of the critical reception of, for instance, Tommy and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, see Marsh, Before I Get Old, 338–42, and Gallo, Genesis, 66–9. For a more general overview of the critical reception of progressive rock, see Chapter 8 of Macan, Rocking the Classics, 167–78.Google Scholar

106 Drive-By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera, original CD recording (Lost Highway Recordings 170 308–2), 2002.Google Scholar

107 Indeed, it could be argued that critical (and audience) interest has shifted almost exclusively from the audio component of popular music to its video component. However, this would belie the continuing – and apparently increasing – enthusiasm among new audiences for the ‘head music’ of the 1960s and 1970s.Google Scholar

108 On the impact of video and MTV, see – for instance – Robert Walser, ‘The Rock and Roll Era’, The Cambridge History of American Music, ed. David Nicholls (Cambridge, 1998), 374–5.Google Scholar