Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration

Mark Morris' 1988 dance, L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, set to music by Handel and poems by John Milton, and inspired by watercolors by William Blake, has been called a work of "utopian grandeur," "a masterpiece of craft, invention, and feeling," and "in scale and complexity, in a category by itself." From London to Berkeley to Houston, audiences ecstatically cheer for it. More than 200 photographs capture each of the piece's 32 interconnected dances and are accompanied by the text of Milton's interwoven poems, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," to which Handel set the music. New Yorker dance critic Joan Acocella provides a new essay; Alastair Macaulay and Wendy Lesser also offer appreciations. An overview of the making of L'Allegro, based on interviews with all of the principal artists and many of Mark Morris's dancers, provides an unprecedented glimpse at the creation of this modern-day masterpiece. A glorious celebration of one of the great dance masterworks of the twentieth century, the book contains over 200 color and black-and-white photographs plus reproductions of the Blake watercolors from which Mark Morris drew inspiration. "Possibly the most exhaustive examination of a single dance work ever published." —New York Times "An extraordinarily handsome new book ... A thorough and valuable critique and appreciation of this glorious dance work." —The New York Observer "A beautiful coffee-table book.... Elegantly photographed, edited, and produced. A treasured gift for a Morris fan."—Dance Magazine