The new music theatre of the third quarter of the twentieth century presents a research field of great richness. In these years, music theatre became one of the main preoccupations for (especially) young composers digesting the consequences of the revolutionary experiments in musical language that followed the end of the Second World War. Despite the importance of 'music theatre' in this period, many significant works are now almost forgotten, and very few regularly revived, often because of the inadequacies of surviving notations or the unusual demands of staging.

Robert Adlington holds the Queen's Anniversary Prize Chair in Contemporary Music at the University of Huddersfield. He is author of books on Harrison Birtwistle, Louis Andriessen, and avant-garde music in 1960s Amsterdam, and editor of volumes on avant-garde music in the 1960s, and music and communism outside the communist bloc. He has written articles and chapters on Nono, Berio, musical modernism, new music theatre, and musical temporality.

Introduction ROBERT ADLINGTON

PART I: Between the avant-gardes: new music theatre and new conceptions of drama

1. The definition of a new performance code between 'avant-garde' and 'new' theatre STEFANIA BRUNO

2. Total theatre and music theatre: tracing influences from pre- to post-war avant-gardes JULIA H. SCHRÖDER

3. Theatre as problem: modern drama and its influence in Ligeti, Pousseur and Berio VINCENZINA C. OTTOMANO

PART II: Expansions of technology

4. Audio-visual collisions: moving image technology and the Laterna Magika aesthetic in new music theatre HOLLY ROGERS

5. Composing new media: magnetic tape technology in new music theatre, c. 1950-1970 ANDREAS MÜNZMAY

PART III: The critique of established power

6. Guerrilla in the Polder: Music-Theatrical Protests in the Low Countries, 1968-1969 HARM LANGENKAMP

7. René Leibowitz's Todos caerán: grand opéra as (critique of) new music theatreESTEBAN BUCH

PART IV: New venues and environments

8. A survey of new music theatre in Rome, 1961-1973: 'anni favolosi'? ALESSANDRO MASTROPIETRO

9. Avant-garde music theatre: the Festival d'Avignon between 1967 and 1969 JEAN-FRANÇOIS TRUBERT

PART V: Reconceiving the performer

10. Reconceptualising the performer in new music theatre: collaborations with actors, mimes and musicians DAVID BEARD

11. Embodied commitments: solo performance and the making of new music theatre FRANCESCA PLACANICA

PART VI: Analyzing new music theatre

12. New music theatre and theories of embodied cognition BJÖRN HEILE

13. Analyzing new music theatre: theme and variations (in a multimedial perspective) ANGELA IDA DE BENEDICTIS