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THE OPERA FORM: SIX OBSERVATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2018

Abstract

In this article I argue that it seems to be an inherent quality of the opera medium that it maintain an active and creative approach to all aspects of stage art and that these can and should be part of the composition since their relation to music is no less obvious than that of text to music. I examine the equivalence of speech and song, the equivalence of opera and theatre in general, the relative status of text and other aspects of the form, the relative status of formal development and melody, the equivalence of stage character and form, and the abstract nature of the concept of plot.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

A slightly longer version of this article was originally published in the Icelandic literary review Skirnir in April 2016.

References

2 For example, Gordon Craig (1872–1966) and Antonin Artaud (1896–1944).

3 ‘For me it's all opera … all of the arts are in opera. So in a sense all of my work or works are operas … meaning “opus”’. Wilson, Robert, quoted in Contact with the Gods? Directors talk theatre, ed. Delgado, Maria and Heritage, Paul (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 303Google Scholar.

4 The relation of two formal layers is always to some extent mutual. The form and contents of the text will typically influence the atmosphere and gestures of the music. But music leads the game, and in music, rhythm is the most influential player.

5 Some readers might remark that their favourite tune is perfectly all right even when whistled without accompaniment. But in such cases our memory is the accompaniment, giving the music the hue it has in the original context and arrangement.

6 I admit that this takes the word melody slightly out of its most common meaning.

7 I cannot resist the temptation of including an event from my own experience: An actor in one of my works had problems with what he considered an incomprehensible and absurd role. After rehearsal he went, rather desperate, to a pub, ordered a drink, took up the script and continued trying to come to terms with it. Then it so happened that he was addressed by a person – not quite sane of mind – who proved to be more or less identical to the role I was trying to make him perform. The role proved to be more realistic than he suspected.

8 Though we sometimes need some support to perceive a work of art – for example 3D glasses for a film – this support does not become part of the work's perceptual surface as the text machine does. I am convinced that what is part of the perceptual surface must also be part of the work.