ABSTRACT
The idea that an artist would be isolated from society appeared in the early nineteenth century, with the rise of Romanticism. The early twentieth-century response to the contemporary alterations in society has been summed up by many later historians as one of crisis and alienation, in which modernity was frequently seen as dangerous to moral and spiritual well-being. The sweeping changes in society had an effect on the social position of composers and musicians, which was accompanied by a shift within the language of music itself. The artist-opera is a particularly apposite genre with which to investigate changing ideologies of artistry in the early twentieth century, because of the way in which the composers of such works construct relationships between the fictional individuals in the piece and their society.
