| From 1909 through 1927, Carl Ruggles labored over the composition of an opera. He progressed quite far in this endeavor, possibly even finishing one version (now lost), but was never satisfied with later sketches and ultimately abandoned it. Extant among his papers, obtained by Yale University in 1973, are approximately one thousand holograph pages pertaining to this project, a setting of The Sunken Bell (Die versunkene Glocke), a play by Gerhart Robert Hauptmann, and translated into English by Charles Henry Meltzer, whom Ruggles chose to write the libretto.;The purpose of this thesis is to give a detailed history of Ruggles' years on the opera, to produce edited reconstructions of most of the better developed manuscripts from all five acts, and to examine his early compositional evolution through this music. To these ends, the main text is divided into four major segments: Part I. A general survey of Ruggles' acknowledged works, a look at his early career, and a history of his work on The Sunken Bell; Part II. A biographical sketch of Hauptmann, a discussion and synopsis of Die versunkene Glocke, and an exhaustive biography of Charles Henry Meltzer, including heretofore unpublished information about him; Part III. A description of the opera holographs preserved among the Ruggles Papers at Yale University; and Part IV. An examination of the musical content of the opera sketches.;Equally important to the text are five appendices which must be consulted during the reading of Parts IV and V. These include detailed information on the music holographs (including John Kirkpatrick's indices to the manuscripts), distribution of text lines among the manuscripts, libretto typescript, marked copy of the play owned by Ruggles (the 1899 Doubleday and McClure publication of Meltzer's English translation), and edited reconstructions of excerpts from the opera. |
