monodrama

[mon-uh-drah-muh, -dram-uh]

noun

1. a dramatic piece for only one performer.

monodrama

/ ˈmɒnəʊˌdrɑːmə /

noun

1. a play or other dramatic piece for a single performer

Other Word Forms

• monodramatic adjective
• monodramatist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of monodrama¹

First recorded in 1785–95; mono- + drama

Example Sentences

Sellars had long proposed the curious combining of Schoenberg’s “Erwartung,” a violently expressionist monodrama for soprano and large orchestra, with the last movement, “Abschied,” of Mahler’s song-symphony “Das Lied von der Erde.”

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The newly commissioned work that followed was Kate Soper’s “Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,” a sensationally witty and profound monodrama about the meaning of music for amplified soprano and large orchestra.

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The composer who was reluctant to write for theater would go on to create the richly nuanced monodrama “Émilie,” premiered by the soprano Karita Mattila in 2010; the Noh-inspired “Only the Sound Remains,” staged in 2016; and “Innocence,” first unveiled at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2021, a work powerfully wise in its ideas and execution, a smoothly cohesive collage of styles that now seems like something of a career capstone, if not her masterpiece.

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Or so “Being Mr. Wickham,” a tart monodrama written by Adrian Lukis and Catherine Curzon, would have us believe.

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“Eight Songs for a Mad King” is a 30-minute music-theater monodrama, written by Davies in 1969 in collaboration with the actor Roy Hart.

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