Opera is the most expensive performing art and an epitome of high culture. Is the rise of the new media and communication devices the death of opera or its second life? The workshop “Opera in Medial Transformation”, held at the European University Institute in Florence 12th-13th March 2010, discussed opera as an institution, as a mode of performance and as a cultural space, revisiting clichés and listing new challenges. The focus of the workshop were the transformations that the new media pose to musical theatre, but the debate concerned a much wider scope than merely opera. Exploring the dynamics between canon and innovation or the classical stage and the virtual space of broadcast transmission, the workshop touched on the central issues of cultural production in the age of “mechanical reproduction”.1 The workshop, realised within the research project “Europe and Beyond. Transfers, Networks and Markets for Musical Theatre in Modern Europe”, was organised by Sarah Zalfen of the Free University in Berlin and chaired by Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Philipp Ther of the European University Institute in Florence.
The opening session of the workshop was devoted to the definitions of the operatic and mediality. IMMACOLATA AMODEO (Jacobs University in Bremen) tried to pinpoint the concept of “the operatic” not only as an art form, but also as an aesthetic quality traceable across different genres. In her view, it was not only the new technical means of reproducing opera, but also the very historical roots of the genre, originating as an experiment of reviving Greek theatre, that rendered “the operatic” a concept transcending the genre itself. Quoting Gramsci, Amodeo pointed out that “the operatic” might also stand for a certain aesthetic quality or even “a conception of life”.
BIANCA MICHAELIS (University of Munich) concentrated, in turn, on how the television and other audiovisual media influence opera. She noted that the new technical means transformed not only the production of operas, but also contributed to the rise of new crossover genres of musical theatre, converging opera and audiovisual media. What is more, the marriage of the audiovisual media and the opera freed the the latter from the theatre hall, creating new spaces of performance.
The new media not only allow opera to travel in space, but they also permit a travel back in time. MATTHIAS NÖTHER, musicologist and music critic from Berlin, commented on this trend, discussing the re-edition of old Shellack recordings as CDs. Although the new medium provides an unprecedented accessibility to the old recordings, Nöther pointed out that it is hardly a document of the musical landscape of the epoch. Music labels revive old operatic masters on the compact disc to ward off the crisis in the classical music industry, but the parallel to contemporary stereo recordings is only deceptive and the insight we gain into the world of the performance around 1900 - illusory.
VJERA KATALINIC (University of Zagreb) also devoted her talk to these early musical recordings and to how they revolutionised the reception of opera and the habits of listening to music in general. Long before the era of the compact disc, Edison's phonograph, the gramophone and the radio gave music theatres and the circulation of opera recordings a transnational character. The beginnings of commercial sound recording relied not only on the international transfer of technologies, but also of business ideas. Thus, the popularity of the operetta at the turn of the 20th century was fuelled by the rising accessibility of sound recording and reproduction but also by the commercial printing of notation sheets of popular stage numbers for home music-making. The medial transformation of opera, therefore, argued Katalinic, is not a new phenomenon, but rather a process which has shaped the development of the genre for at least a century.
A likewise historical perspective on the intersection of opera and audiovisual media was offered by OKSANA SARKISOVA (Moscow State University). Discussing film examples from the USSR (Igor’ Savchenko's "Garmon’", 1934; Sergei Eisenstein’s "Ivan the Terrible" and Grigorii Roshal's "Musorgsky", 1950), Sarkisova spoke of the importance of musical film productions for the creation of the Soviet collective identity. Dealing with the reinvention of the opera on the silver screen, she analysed these productions as both sites of artistic creativity and political subversion. Coupling the opera, traditionally considered as fantastic, with the naturalism of the Soviet cinema resulted not only in interesting cases of adaptation, but also led to a transformation of the genre, mixing the operatic dimension with new filmic devices like montage, or close-ups.
PETER STACHEL (Austrian Academy of Sciences) also focused on opera in film. Analysing the films devoted to the figure of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Stachel traced the representation of Mozart as a Romantic artist and a celebrity. Concentrating on "Wen die Götter lieben" (1942) by Karl Hartl and "Amadeus" (1984) by Milos Forman, he presented how elements of Mozart's biography were arranged to achieve a dramatic effect, turning Mozart himself into an operatic figure. The intersection of opera and the realm of mass entertainment was addressed also by DIMITRIOS KIOUSOPOULOS (EUI Florence) who, analysing the motif of opera-going in "Pretty Woman", tried to put forward a claim that the year 1990 was a turning point in the history of opera, marking a change in the perception of the genre as elitist and inaccessible.
The democratisation of musical theatre was also at the centre of the presentation of SUSANNE VILL (University of Bayreuth). In her talk, she analysed the processes of adapting famous operas for musical productions, discussing in particular the differences in the technical equipment used in traditional opera productions and musicals. Vill convincingly demonstrated how the introduction of microports, digital sound software and “slave” recordings not only influenced the singing technique, but also contributed to the particular allure of musicals. New technology, argued Vill, allowed musicals to attract a young audience who would not attend opera and offer them an intensive musical experience in an immersive audiovisual environment.
The radical technological changes also in the production of operas inspired JELENA NOVAK (University of Amsterdam) to introduce the term “postopera”. In her presentation under the intriguing title “Postopera: Prosthesis, Ventriloquism, Travesty”, she discussed different relations of body and sound on the examples of three “postoperas”: "One" by Michel van der Aa (2002), "Three Tales" by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot (2002) and "La Belle et la Bête" by Philip Glass (1994). Postopera, argued Novak, not only applies new technologies, achieving unprecedented sound effects, but also reflects on the implications of technological reproduction. Thus the technologically modified, moleculised, or deconstructed voice reveals the problematic relation of the singing body and the produced voice. The new means to replace, reinvent or transplant a voice to another body redefine singing and opera, turning it into an instrument to express fragmented identities and contemporary anxieties.
The age of mass-media was also the focus of SARAH ZALFEN (Free University in Berlin). She devoted her presentation to the reception of opera at the time when the rise of the new media made it more available and democratic. While televised opera broadcasts between the 1960s and 1985 relocated the opera experience into the private sphere, offering an autonomous and solitary reception of the operatic performances, they failed to meet the demand for a social dimension of opera-viewing. Public viewing of opera broadcasts was a response to this need. Since the mid-1980s, opera broadcasts in cinemas, urban spaces and the internet have been arranged in a way to simulate a live opera experience. Live chats, public voting and on-line communities have served to transform solitary viewing into a collective social ritual, which allowed not only a more focused reception but also the flagging of social status. In this way, the original social dimension of opera-going could be to a certain extent retained in the new mediated rituals of opera viewing.
The new modes of transmitting and consuming opera, however, have not been a solution to all the challenges that the genre is facing. PAVEL JIRACEK (Oxford, Zurich and Cologne) made it clear that the rise of new technologies does not necessarily help opera as an institution to profile itself as socially relevant. Among the most burning problems of opera halls Jiracek listed the fossilised repertory of many houses which, for economic reasons, decide to stage only the most popular works, neglecting new commissions. Such economically safe repertoire decisions endanger the development of opera as an art form and confirm the image of the institution as conservative and anachronistic. To break the vicious circle, according to Jiracek, opera managers need not only to invest in “research and development” but also rethink the spatiality, forms of staging and social role of opera, opening the institution for outreach programmes, social work and experimentation.
New marketing strategies of opera houses were also the subject of AURELIE BARBUSCIA (EUI Florence). Taking as a case study the Florentine opera house, she analysed the advantages and disadvantages of introducing “low cost operas” to improve the theatre's finances. The apparently successful campaign of the opera of Florence to attract younger audiences by staging more performances and investing in intensive promotion had, in Barbuscia's view, also a negative side effect in the fossilisation of the repertoire.
Wondering whether the development of the audiovisual media can actually save the traditional institution of the opera or only herald its end, both Barbuscia and Jiracek addressed a crucial question, relevant not only to opera studies. The transformations of opera in the age of the new media expose the contradictions and dilemmas that are more universal in cultural studies. What is the place of art in the consumption society? Given that the success of cultural products depends on their market value and the current demand, what differentiates them from mere consumption goods? What is the relation between the democratisation of access to art and mainstream culture? What is the role of opera, as a western art form, in the age of globalisation? What is the function of opera, as the epitome of “high art”, in generating social status and class identities? Although the workshop “Opera in Medial Transformation” well documented the changes that the genre has undergone in the last century, empirical case studies outweighed an analysis on this more universal, theoretical level.
The workshop presentations provided many examples of the interconnectedness of the “high” and the “low” and the transfer between opera and its “others” (musical, operetta, visual arts) but they did not yet offer a theoretical paradigm transcending the old distinction between “popular” and “high art”. The contents of what is popular and non-popular change from period to period and, as some popular forms “go up the cultural escalator” 2, others are appropriated into the mainstream from high culture. This dynamic exchange involves also the opera, which becomes an inspiration for Hollywood, at the same time recycling elements of popular culture for its own productions. And it is this postmodern fluidity, impermanence and the potentially unlimited availability that define opera today.3 Studying it as a space of constant transformations, shifts and even clashes requires methodologies that allow to conceptualise the genre beyond the dichotomies of “elitist” and “mainstream”, “high” and “low” or “popular” and “niche”. The Florence workshop, with its interdisciplinary character and many thought-provoking papers, was a step in this direction.
Conference Overview:
„Europe and Beyond“ – project-meeting: Discussion of upcoming monographs
Sarah Zalfen, Sven Oliver Müller, Markian Prokopovych, Ostap Sereda, Vjera Katalinic
Opening
Philipp Ther/Heinz Gerhard Haupt/Sarah Zalfen
TERMS, PRECONDITIONS, CONCEPTS
Chair: Jutta Toelle
Immacolata Amodeo:
Opera and Its Others. Steps towards an Intertwined History and Theory of the Operatic
Bianca Michaels:
Music, Television, Video – On the Mediality of Opera in the Media Age
TRANSFORMATIONS I
Chair: Markian Prokopovych
Matthias Nöther:
Analyzing singing and speaking recordings around 1900. Difficulties and Chances
Vjera Katalinic:
Zagreb Operetta at the Beginning of the 20th Century and its Early Recordings
TRANSFORMATIONS II
Chair: Markian Prokopovych
Oksana Sarkisova:
Tunes into Images: Musical Theatre and Cinema in Dialogue
Peter Stachel:
Amadeus Moviestar. Cultural Branding and Identity Politics in Mozart-Movies
Dimitrios Kiousopoulos
1990: The year that media transformed opera
TRANSFORMATIONS III
Chair: Markian Prokopovych
Susanne Vill:
Opera Goes Musical - The Role of Media in Cross-Genre Transformations
Jelena Novak:
Postopera: Prosthesis, Ventriloquism, Travesty Reinventing Singing in the Age of Media
Discussion: Transfer or Transformation? (Sven Oliver Müller)
CONSEQUENCES, CHALLANGES, IMPACTS
Chair: Gunilla Budde
Sarah Zalfen:
The Biggest Audience Ever? Isolation vs. Extension – the Spectator of Opera in ‚Mass’media
Pavel Jiracek:
Insourcing the Opera Laboratory: Cannibalism and its Prevention in Opera
Aurelie Barbuscia:
Low Cost Operas: A New Marketing Strategy to Save the Italian Opera Houses. A Case Study: The City of Florence
Final Discussion (Gunilla Budde)
Notes:
1 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, London 1999.
2 Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular'”, in: John Storey (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, London 1988, p. 448.
3 Zygmunt Bauman, Culture as Praxis, London 1999, p. xlv.