Gracchus - (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Gracchus is a grand opera that tells of an unforgettable human drama set to soaring music. The whole unfolds according to the principles of the total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk), incorporating perennial human themes while embracing music, poetry, dance, scenography, and philosophical reflection in a spectacle of emotional power whose purpose is to entertain and to edify. Besides the dialogue and lyrics, the libretto contains summary descriptions of the music for each scene giving the reader a substantive taste of the score. Though the plot has a historical basis being set in the late Roman Republic and centered on the life of Gaius Gracchus, a tribune of the people, the story uses that period to create a socio-political allegory of contemporary times. The text and score of Gracchus do not, finally, just combine but merge to produce a single aesthetic phenomenon inspired by the roots of opera, epic literature, and the dramatic tradition of classical tragedy.

Review Quotes

"What is desperately needed in our epoch is a revival of story-telling and more broadly a project of fostering real, humanizing culture. Richard Munkelt and David Hughes have done a marvellous job in their contribution to the great Western tradition of operatic art. The story of Gracchus, with its clever libretto set to exquisite music, explores the complexities of pursuing virtue in a graceless world." -Dr. Sebastian Morello

"Having attended the world premiere, I can say that Gracchus's music and libretto joined forces to bring about an aesthetic experience of high art that was exhilarating and inspiring. Bravo!" -Christopher Ferrara, Esq.

"Gracchus mobilizes all the tools that our historical tradition has given us, using rhetoric, music, and dance to drive home the importance of the union of political authority and individual conscience in pursuit of the common good. One cannot help but be filled with renewed hope for the future seeing such an epic work of beauty come to fruition." -Dr. John Rao, Director of The Roman Forum

"Hughes and Munkelt deserve our praise for flying in the face of a voguish nihilism and undertaking to write an opera that represents a revival of classical tragedy, largely as described by Aristotle in his Poetics, a treatise that greatly influenced the neo-classical dramatic poets of seventeenth-century France." -David Lane, playwright

"Gracchus is an opera and literary work of epic proportions. The story is something timely and timeless-political and personal-in that it is unlike almost anything produced today. It blends an intensely political story, one that is familiar-ambition, treachery, salaciousness, and high-mindedness-with something relatable to 'everyman' in the personal failures and aspirations of every family. Gracchus is the story of us today and the battle of virtue and vice in both the political and intimate realms. Get the libretto and savor a great human drama, one for posterity." -Christopher Gawley, attorney and writer