Gilgamesh and the ancient Near East: adapting ancient texts for modern musical stage works

Guinn, M (2025) Gilgamesh and the ancient Near East: adapting ancient texts for modern musical stage works. PhD thesis, Bath Spa University. doi: 10.17870/bathspa.00017132

Preview

Text 17132.pdf Repository Terms Apply. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

This practice-led PhD research explores how modern composers adapt ancient texts to present works based on them to contemporary audiences of musical stage works. The method of research is an examination of the libretti and their ancient sources in order to discuss how composers make changes in the texts in order to reflect their own socio-political times or simply to make the ancient stories feel less remote for their audiences. A brief chapter on adaptation studies sets the parameters of how artists adapt narratives to turn them into their own autonomous works. Translation, "the cognate field to adaptation studies", is the focus of the following chapter in the commentary with an examination of a passage from the Epic of Gilgamesh by several translators over the span of 140 years that shows how the epic has developed over that time as well as varying techniques applied by the translators to render the story to their particular readership. The study focuses on operas and other musical stage works based on texts from the ancient Near East. The composers and compositions included in ancient text adaptation case studies are Philip Glass and his opera Akhnaten, Bohuslav Martinu and his oratorio The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Per Norgard and his opera Gilgamesh. In addition to the libretti and text source comparisons, the data for the research are also collected from monographs and other scholarly studies on these composers and works in addition to documents and memoirs from the composers themselves where available. I follow all of this with a commentary on my own adaptation of Gilgamesh and situate it within the framework of these predecessors for musical adaptation, a commentary that accompanies a submitted work of recordings of the adaptation totalling nearly three hours. The research herein contributes a potential new niche to musical stage work studies as a focus on adapting ancient texts for modern audiences appears to be a new area of research in musicology.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Note:	Accompanying audio-visual content relating to the practice research component of this thesis is not currently available. This record contains the critical (text) component only.
Keywords:	PhD by practice, music, opera, musical stage works, adaptation, ancient texts, ancient Near East, Gilgamesh, modern audience, composition, musicology
Divisions:	Bath School of Music and Performing Arts
Date Deposited:	24 Nov 2025 14:05
Last Modified:	26 Nov 2025 09:13
URN:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/17132

	Request a change to this item or report an issue
	Update item (repository staff only)