Screen Images in Contemporary Opera: Concerning the Issue of the Genre’s Renewal at the Turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: At the turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries opera theater went through a set of succession of fermentation, which is connected with the inclusion into the opera genre of new themes, subjects and new regularities in the construction of opera librettos, with the formation of specific dramaturgical principles and stylistic discoveries. The article accentuates attention towards the issue of the changes which have occurred in the genre of opera under the influence of new media and performances. The author dwells in great detail on illuminating the question of what changes have occurred within the opera genre under the influence of the media, and what do composers and theater producers wish to achieve by bringing in screen depictions in opera production. For her research material the author has chosen operatic compositions in which innovations are connected with an erosion of the boundaries between art and reality, with a rejection of the regular laws of drama, with the strengthening of the role of the audience during the process of constructing the production’s conception. The article examines operas by Louis Andriessen, Steve Reich and Philip Glass from the positions of manifestation in them of new dramaturgical regularities. As a result of analytical observations the author arrives at the conclusion that the events instilling into the dramaturgy of the opera action by means of screen images carry out meaning-generating functions connected with the creation of the effect of suggestion and estrangement. Keywords: contemporary opera, new media, screen video images, performance.
Authors: Rostov State S. V. Rachmaninoff Conservatory, Elena V. Kiseyeva
Institution: Rostov State Rakhmaninov Conservatory
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3091044159