Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Aiming to contribute to an ongoing debate on the relationship between opera and screen media, my article begins by posing a number of questions about the aesthetic and political implications of technological reproduction. I then examine and critique a paradox that pervades our media-saturated culture—namely, that the remediation of musical-theatrical works is often treated as a means of enhancing, rather than of questioning, a sense of authenticity, uniqueness, and presence. This in turn leads me to an analysis of three objects (and three fantasies) in which this paradox, which is bound up with a strange blend of nostalgia and an urge for excess, takes on paradigmatic form. I conclude with a critical reflection on the challenge inherent in recording and broadcasting operatic stage productions. Throughout, I aim to suggest ways of avoiding a fetishization of liveness without, however, falling into another trap—the simple dichotomization of liveness and mediatization.
Source: The Opera Quarterly
DOI: 10.1093/oq/kbz006
Author: João Pedro Cachopo
Institution: Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: European Commission
OpenAlex ID: W2964168245