{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024267782426778243, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0066945606694560665, 'mean_word_length': 5.757062146892656, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater (review)

The term “music theater” has traditionally performed the difficult task of designating a wide range of genres that do not fit standard definitions of either opera or musical theatre. Recent critical attention distinguishes the development of music theatre in the 1960s and early 1970s as an independent category of experimental staged works, thereby aligning the efforts of individual composers with the British, German, and American avant-garde. W. Anthony Sheppard’s authoritative study of this twentieth-century phenomenon extends the historical treatment of the genre and he compellingly argues for a more flexible notion of music theatre. He contends that “music theater was a vital modernist genre” and that “the compositional concerns and cultural themes manifested in these works were fundamental to the history of twentiethcentury Euro-American music, drama, and dance” (xi–xii). In this provocative work, Sheppard’s interdisciplinary approach invites consideration beyond music scholarship and is certain to stimulate further exploration into this neglected area of musical performance.