Tamara Levitz’s "Modernist Mysteries: Perséphone," published in September by Oxford University Press, was selected earlier this month as the best book in music and performing arts in 2012 by the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE).
The book relays the history of Igor Stravinsky’s 1934 star-crossed ballet "Perséphone," which played just three nights at the Paris Opéra before closing to negative reviews.
Given across more than 40 categories, the PROSE awards recognize "the very best in professional and scholarly publishing," according to its website. This year’s competition attracted 518 entries of books, reference works, journals and electronic products. Entries were judged by publishers, librarians and scholars.
"Her work has been singled out as the best of a very large group of books nominated by publishers at all levels, from many studies on a wide variety of music and performance topics by authors from a number of different disciplines," said Robert Fink, the chair of the Musicology Department. "It is a signal honor."
As one of the world’s preeminent Stravinsky authorities, Levitz spent a decade unearthing the history of the ballet that brought together a virtual dream team of collaborators: writer André Gide, Stravinsky, dancer Ida Rubinstein, director Jacques Copeau and German expressionist choreographer Kurt Jooss. By the end of the production, the collaborators were at odds with one another, largely the result of a tug of war between the first glimmerings of a gay rights movement and the rise of a religious right.
Due to her reputation in Stravinsky circles, Levitz has been invited to serve as the scholar in residence for "Stravinsky and His World," a two-week festival in August at Bard College in New York’s Hudson River Valley. The festival will include a revival of "Perséphone."
