Opera Narratives Héctor Julio Pérez López VOLUME 1
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Opera Narratives From Mythology to Audiovisual Aesthetics
Héctor Julio Pérez López, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain Abstract: It is worthy to propose some reasons to consider Opera video recordings on DVD or Video as a powerful instrument to study an Opera from the point of view of its aesthetic characteristics. In comparison with the aesthetic qualities of a score, or an audio recording, an Opera Video recording offers important scenic and dramatic elements for a wider and a richer vision of the narrative plot. Each Opera could be considered as an archaeological site with different stratums of stories. Let's take an example, Monteverdi's Orpheus. The origin of this opera plot is a myth, a first level of written Story. The second level is Monteverdi's opera score containing a modified version of literary and mythological sources. The artistic performance shows another level of the plot, with a deeper dramatic signification defined by different aesthetic nuances. The last level of the plot is the audiovisual recording, where some decisions of the TV director could be important for the understanding and aesthetic perception of the dramatic narrative. This paper will offer an analysis of the new perspectives of audiovisual narrative related to opera, considering DVD or Video recordings as an audiovisual text. The main perspective will focuses on the new possibilities for giving a more comprehensive and deeper aesthetic vision to study the opera, considering the great development of dramatic and scenic proposals of stage directors as Luca Ronconi, Robert Wilson, Peter Konwitschny, Harry Kupfer, Jean Luc Bondy, etc. Keywords: Opera performance, Aesthetics and Technologies, Changes on experiencing art
A New form to Experience the Opera URING THE LAST few years, opera DVD recordings have become widely available. The market now offers a comparatively wider repertoire than previously, when opera had been recorded on Video VHS or Beta. In many countries, even without an operatic tradition, opera DVDs are being sold in collections, which have had an important commercial success. These opera series allow people from different countries to enjoy the great operatic repertoire available in DVD ( which is at least 80% of the repertoire that opera houses usually program) paying a good deal less than the price of VHS recordings of some years ago. Probably, some important reasons for this growing cultural audiovisual field itself are the advantages offered by DVD in visual and sound quality. The quality and durability of the images reproduced in DVD are greater than those offered by VHS products. However, when referring concretely to opera, though here the image is, indeed, important, it is the quality of the sound reproduction in the DVD system that plays the main role. In addition, domestic audiovisual reproduction equipments, such as home cinema or
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plasma screens, have significantly improved the quality of sound and image. Of course, it is worth noting that while these technological systems are not yet widely available in many countries, their relatively affordable prices will increase availability within a few years. In any case, there is an evolution, opera is no longer to be considered an elitist artistic gender. As a result of technological advancement, these DVD recordings are now reaching a wider audience. This new situation, therefore, allows us to open a new perspective on the aesthetics of opera: How can we evaluate the aesthetic qualities of an opera DVD recording? I am talking about the possibilities of considering a DVD recording of Verdi’s Otello, or Wagner’s Lohengrin, for example, including not only the aesthetic qualities implied by all the artistic contributions of their performances, but also, the audiovisual language which is offering us the possibility of having a new aesthetic experience of the recorded performances. An aesthetical analysis of this kind includes not only the necessary concepts for developing a study of the artistic qualities of an opera performance but also some basic filmic perspectives and concepts of performance semiotics. 1
1
See, for example, Guglielmo Pescatore. La voce e il corpo. L'opera lirica nel cinema. Campanotto: Udine, Campanotto, 2001; Gianfranco Bettetini. La conversación audiovisual. Problemas de la enunciación fílmica y televisiva. Madrid: Cátedra, 2004; Keir Elam. The semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New York: Routledge, 2002; Erika Fischer-Lichte. Ästhetik des Performativen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY, KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIETY, VOLUME 1, 2005/2006 http://www.Technology-Journal.com, ISSN 1832-3669 © Common Ground, Héctor Julio Pérez López, All Rights Reserved, Permissions:
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Opera DVD recordings may be considered a specific audiovisual genre with a very special characteristic: the filming of an opera is, in fact, a registration of a performance whose main objective is to offer the richest audiovisual experience, in terms of the aesthetic of the performance. In most cases, therefore, filming is not an artistic process having an influence on musical questions, nor on the decisions of the stage directors nor on the dramatic performance of the singers, but a way of recording different artistic processes to offer a different experience of the performance through a new language. Obviously, I will not consider the aesthetic experience of a DVD opera as something superior to the aesthetic experience of attending a live operatic representation. Both are two different experiences and, in my opinion, they cannot be considered opposites or in competition, but rather they are very close to each other in a certain way: the DVD recording may only be understood as an effect of the live performance. We must remember that most opera DVDs are recorded live in front of a real audience. As a result of the different circumstances I have above mentioned, opera DVD should help to create a new profile of opera spectators. Up to now, many opera fans have suffered the limitation of technological evolution. Here I am referring to the influence of the opera CD. These opera fans considered spontaneously this artistic gender with the same kind of aesthetic judgements as those used to comment on the Kindertotenlieder, for example. It is not difficult to read critical texts on opera considering the plot, the dramatic performance, the mise-in-scène, etc… as very accessory elements, while the truly important key of an opera performance remains not the music, but more concretely the vocal interpretation of the singers2. In contrast to the aesthetic limitations produced by the limitations of technology for recording and reproducing opera performances during the recent decades, I think that the best quality of a good opera 2
DVD should let us know what is happening currently in opera houses and what opera means today. In fact, the clearest element in the evolution of opera performances during recent decades is the greater importance given to the theatrical aspects as a central part of the performance, such as the dramatic performance of the singers, the stage design and the dance choreographies3. Even without thinking about the importance of the visual possibilities offered by the new technological domestic equipment, contemporary opera performances with a certain quality are artistic plays characterized by a very important visuality, and it could even be said, that the opera has become an experimental area to discover new and subtle conceptions of the fusion between different arts4.
Vococentrism: the main Filmic Strategy to Enhance the Dramatic Experience of DVD Spectators The principle with the strongest influence in opera DVD recordings is exactly what Michel Chion has called vococentrism5, the privilege of the voice over all the other sonic elements in audiovisual media. The influence of this principle is to be seen in every opera DVD: the screen shows for the most part different close-ups of the performing singers. At the beginning of the last Opera by Hans Werner Henze, L'Upupa 6, the screen shows an image of the whole stage for some seconds, then, after the first notes the camera zooms onto the highest part of the stage: there is a window where an old man leans out. The camera could have shown more detail of the stage itself. However, it travels spontaneously towards the only character on the stage to offer a close-up of him: thereafter the opera continues for some minutes with a narrative monologue by the old man, and during this time the spectator observes a detailed close-up of the performing singer, as if the camera has been “magnetized by the voice”. Examples like this are to be found everywhere in opera DVD repertoire, so
One of the most important publications in France, L’Avant Scene. Opéra, includes always a section of critical perspectives offering this kind of partial opinions about CD and VIDEO recordings. 3 I am referring specially to the main Opera Houses as Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Staatsoper, Theatre de la Monnaie, Theatre du Chatelet, Teatro Real, Gran Teatre del Lliceu, San Francisco Opera House, and Festivals as Glyndenbourne, Salzburger Festspiele, Aix en Provence. 4 Some examples of these experimental approaches are: Richard Wagner. Tristan und Isolde. Bayersisches Staatorchester. Conducted by Zubin Mehta. Stage Director Peter Konwitschny. Directed for TV by Brian Large. Recorded at Nationaltheater Munich in 1998. ARTHAUS Musik 1999. Hector Berlioz. La damnation de Faust. Staatskapelle Berlin. Conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. Stage Direction: Alex Olle/Carlos Padrissa (La Fura dels Baus). Directed for TV by Alexandre Tarta. Recorded at the Salzburger Festspiele in 1999. ARTHAUS Musik 1999. Alban Berg. Lulu. Chorus and Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House. Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. Stage Director: SvenEric Bechtolf. Directed for DVD by Thomas Grimm. Recorded at the Opernhaus Zürich, November 2002. RM Associates 2003. Christoph Willibald Gluck. Alceste. English Baroque Soloists. Monteverdi Choir. Conducted by John Elliot Gardiner. Stage Director: Robert Wilson. Director for TV by Brian Large. Recorded at the Theatre Musical de Paris – Chatelet. ARTHAUS Musik/RM Associates, 2000. Henry Purcell. The Fairy Queen. Orchestra and Chorus of the English National Opera. Conducted by Nicholas Kok. Stage Director: Quinny Sacks. Directed for Television by Barrie Gavin. RM Arts 1995. DVD Opera Collection. Ediciones del Prado S. A. 2004. 5 See the complete definition of this concept in: http://www.filmsound.org/chion/vococentrism.htm. For a wider perspective, see Michel Chion. L’Audiovision. Paris: Nathan, 1990. 6 Hans Werner Henze. L’Upupa. Wiener Philarmoniker. Conducted by Markus Stenz. Directed for the scene by Dieter Dorn and directed for TV by Brian Large. Worldpremiere recorded at the Salzburg Festival. EuroArts Music International, 2004.
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we can say that the image of the singer interpreting it constitutes the visual conductive thread. The camera reproduces what is usually the habitual attitude of an attentive spectator watching the interpreters every time they sing, but the consequences for the aesthetic perception of this extraordinary privilege of the voice are very important. With continuous close-ups on the singers, the spectator’s attention is more heightened and concentrated than the habitual experience of any observer in an opera house. There are no interruptions in our attention, we are guided to follow the performance in a more continuous, almost automatic way. However, the biggest consequence of this vococentrism is the detailed vision of the facial expressivity of the performers the spectator enjoys. The clear and close vision of the singer’s gestuality during the performance allows us to have a stronger experience of the dramatic narrative. The aesthetic appreciation of the gestuality becomes a central element but also causes a more intense approach to the dramatic narration, a nearer approach to the dramatic events offering the psychological shades that impregnate its meaning. Let us also say that reproduction in DVD, allowing the selection of subtitles in several languages, favours decisively the understanding of the sung text, and therefore, in this way adds another key element to follow the dramatic evolution with great attention. The DVD thus provides favourable conditions to experience the fusion of drama and music that opera characterises.
The Freedom of Stage Direction as main Aesthetic Quality Expressed by a DVD Recording Stage directors as Harry Kupfer, Luca Ronconi, Robert Wilson, Calixto Bieito, Peter Konwitschny or Jean Luc Bondy have shown for years that an opera score is a proposal whose scenic realisation implies very different narrative possibilities and that the dramatic text allows an important interpretive flexibility. I would like to remember some words by Peter Kivy on the meaning of musical performance. After considering different kinds of music, Kivy asserts that a good musical interpretation needs some elements that the musician adds freely, beyond the determinations of the musical writing.7 He is speaking about artistic qualities like the elegance of phrasing, the expressive coherence, the poetic intensity, the sound texture, etc… If we translate the same question to the field of opera ,the freedom demanded by the work of art is greater, including not only a part of musical freedom in the performance of the musicians, 7
but a relevant number of ‘free’ decisions concerning the dramatic performance. Can the freedom of some stage directors such as Bieito or Wilson be justified when considering their work a fundamental contribution to the narration? Is the dramatic performance really necessary to be able to appreciate the dramatic qualities of the opera music?
a) The Freedom in the origins of the Opera To justify the importance of this freedom I will propose a general perspective referring to the myth in the origins of the opera, determined by the presence of a creative freedom. The contribution of the freedom of the choreographers and stage directors has to do essentially with the freedom in the history of the dramatic construction of the opera. This argument points to enhance the relevance of the dramaturgy as a key element offered by DVD recordings. Taking into account the narrative structure of the myth, the opera adds two fundamental levels of dramaturgical and musical writing in the dramatization of myth. This fact is due to the potentiality the myth implies because of being susceptible to nonwritten development. The first level of writing is the score of the opera, the second level of writing is the performance, as it is registered in any recording medium like the DVD system. For my following analysis I will consider both as being equal. They function in a similar way as representatives of the aesthetic object, which by itself exists beyond any distinction between the written and the non-written. I will propose Orpheus, one of the fundamental myths in the history of western music, as an example of my analytic strategy. Already the main literary source used by Monteverdi in his Orpheus, the fourth book of Virgil's Georgiche, contains the written nucleus of the great orphic tradition in the opera. The characterization of Orpheus does not solely require the recognition of a key characteristic of his figure, but also a relationship with another character: Euridice. Thus, Orpheus is on the one hand the person whose music is endowed with an exceptional power, the fact that distinguishes the figure and grants him singularity. On the other hand, Orpheus is also a lover, and his story is that of his love for Euridice and the feat that he carries out in order to rescue her from death. As all we know, most of the narrations in which Orpheus is presented as the main character include the love between Orpheus and Euridice, the death of Euridice, and the primordial episode in which Orpheus makes use of his extraordinary musical power to descend to hell and through his music to rescue his wife. This brief description of the Orpheus myth will be useful for us therefore to develop our analysis of
Kivy, Peter. Introduction to a Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 224-50.
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what is written and non-written in Monteverdi’s Orpheus. The myth of Orpheus outlines a sequence of facts throughout the few pages that Virgil dedicates to him: the intense love of Orpheus and Euridice; the death of Euridice bitten by a hydra; the laments of Orpheus; his trip to hell in which he moves the hearts of all his inhabitants with his painful songs; the recovery of Euridice; the violation by Orpheus of the rule imposed by Proserpina; the death of Euridice for the second time and finally again the laments of Orpheus and his own death. At the same time the narration leaves open spaces, it demands decisions to outline a dramatization of the myth. The written narration in the myth demands a non -written part in it for the drama that will also be decisive in the final meaning of the myth inside the opera. The non-written elements demanded by the dramatization could be, in this case: in what place should Orpheus’s and Euridice’s love be presented? How long does the episode of Euridice’s death take, and how should the spectator experience it? Who should influence the songs of Orpheus in hell so that it leads to the persuasion of Euridice’s recovery? What dramatic rhythm should the meeting and the trip of Orpheus and Euridice in hell have? What is the circumstance that moves Orpheus to look at Euridice again?; What happens after the loss of Euridice the second time? A consolidation of the essential structure of the myth takes place in Monteverdi’s Orpheus thanks to dramatizations that offer concrete answers to the mentioned questions. Librettist and composer work together so that the opera will perform the musical expression of pain as a resource of great dramatic power. Monteverdi's Orpheus presents the initial love using landscape and dance as main resources. The first act is a bucolic celebration, in the fields of Thrace, of the announcement of the wedding between Orpheus and Euridice. To reinforce belief in the death of Euridice, Alessadro Striggio, the librettist, doesn't present it to us, following the Aristotelian Poetica. As we know, the death of Euridice is broadcast via a messenger, transforming her pain into the pain of all, in that of the shepherds and even, in the way it presents the setting in the design of Gilbert Defló for the Theater of the Liceu, and with Jordi Savall’s musical direction, in the progressive darkness of the scene8. Monteverdi presents Orpheus’ reaction as a heroic one, because the immediate reaction of Orpheus to the messenger's terrible news is not to be added to the painful elegiac song of Silvia, but proclaims its decision of going down to the same hell to rescue Euridice, in a rebellious raptus... Monteverdi, indeed, 8
doesn't follow the pathetic way. We find a key moment in the character's dramatic creation. The heroic characterization is one of the elements that has produced one of the best solved fragments in the musical conception of the work. Considering it from our point of view that is another of those non-written moments: Monteverdi and Striggio decided that Orpheus shows the power of his songs mainly in front of Caronte, the boatman of the Stygian lagoon that guarded the access to the Kingdom of the Dead. Striggio outlined a singular structure of six strophes of three verses that Monteverdi transformed into variations about only a motivic design for the bass. It is interesting that the heroic character is expressed by a very rich variety of virtuosistic resources that Orpheus develops in each one of the verses. The music also expressed painful emotions as those of the verses: “Da te, cor mio, lontano, Chiami tuo nome invano, e pregando e piangendo Io mi consumi.” The fragment concludes with the famous and insistent formula: “Rendetemi il mio ben, tartarei Numi!”. It is the only moment in which Orpheus uses his musical power to enable him to go to hell and to rescue Euridice. As we know, Monteverdi presents Proserpina later convincing Pluto of the force of the love of Orpheus. There are more episodes that, without doubt, contribute to giving a coherence to the heroic conception of Orpheus's love, but this is not the right place to expose them. However, in the dramatization of the non-written moments in the myth there are some conditions, which enable us to recognize a general conception that structures the opera aesthetically. Globally, considering all the resources implied by the non-written plot of the myth that we have only partly presented here, they offer the following result: on the one side Monteverdi presents a group of characters having the task of expressing the love of Orpheus, and here the main value of this opera is, as Nikolaus Harnoncourt asserts, the coherence9. We can see this quality in the fact that Monteverdi's resources endow enough power for the expression of Orpheus’s love to include many kinds of artistic solutions: the songs of the shepherds' choir in the first act, Silvia's lament, the dialogue between Pluto and Proserpina, the orchestral music that closes the opera, expressing the joy of the last meeting of Orpheus and Euridice in heaven. On the other side, the heroic character of Orpheus appears in a series of very original formal solutions expressing the human character of the feat of Orpheus in a virtuosistic way.
Claudio Monteverdi. L’Orfeo. Le Concert des Nations-La Capella Reial de Catalunya. Conducted by Jordi Savall. Stage Director Gilbert Denlo. DVD producer Dan Ruttley. Recorded at Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona, 31 January 2002. Opus Arte 2002. 9 Nikolaus Hartnoncourt. Der musikalische Dialog. Kassel-Basel-London: Bärenreiter, 1987,pp. 165-170.
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B) The Freedom of a Performance to be Seen Having expressed how the dramatic substance in the origins of the opera needs a deep implication of the freedom of the librettist and the composer, it is also worth noting how the scenic representation (which we can see and enjoy through a DVD reproduction) also needs the freedom of the music director, stage director, stage designer, light designer and everyone contributing at the same time to the aesthetic qualities of the performance. I will refer to the first act of Richard Strauss’s Electra, in the DVD recorded performance directed by Claudio Abbado and Harry Kupfer10. As we know, the opera begins with a dark atmosphere as consequence of a terrible deed: Clitemnestra has murdered her husband Agamemnon with the help of her lover Egisto, who will occupy the throne. Electra becomes the main character of the tragedy through her rejection of this situation. Her position is the absolute negation of the reality that the murder of her father provoked. We could say that the main psychological feature defining her is the obsession with her father, Agamemnon. In the above-mentioned DVD recording, Electra, performed by Eva Marton, appears showing a singular psychological energy through her gestuality: Her dramatic performance underlines an attitude of resistance to the death of her father. However, the importance of the visuality includes other relevant aspects. In the same way as the energetic dramatic performance of Eva Marton is not written in the score, there is an important scenic element proposed by the artistic design of the stage, which is outside any artistic instruction proposed in the score or in the indications of the libretto pointed out by Hugo von Hoffmannstahl.11 The stage for this performance shows an enormous statue of Agamemnon. It is an immense and dark figure, broken, decapitated, as Agamemnon himself. Its enormous scenic presence intensifies the immense psychological value of the father in Electra’s consciousness. In fact, there are some dramatic elements developing this key aspect in the tragic narration. Electra, during her initial monologue in the opera appears next to the enormous foot of the monumental statue of her father Agamemnon. She has in her hands two strings that are coming from the upper part of the decapitated statue, as if she were somehow holding the figure of her father. This possesses an undoubtedly symbolic value. Electra wants to pull the figure of her father, but this is so enormous that she will never be able to do so. The enormous weight of Agamemnon in her mind brings her to a situation 10
of absolute impotence. The opera shows an extraordinary fight of a figure having an enormous psychological energy, Electra, against a psychological situation of superhuman dimensions. Eva Marton’s movements are absolutely coherent therewith, because during the whole scene of her monologue her actions are firm and energetic, but without never leaving the position next to the foot of her father, Agamemnon, and without ever letting go of the strings that tie her to the figure. Her movements, also, are perfectly synchronised with the inflections of Richard Strauss’s music. As we know, the meeting of Electra and her brother Orestes is a core moment in the narrative. Orestes is the only human being in the world suffering the same situation as Electra: he has been expelled from his own country and the murder of his father Agamenón has turned his merry life as a prince into a painful and terrible existence in the exile. And what really ties Electra and Orestes together is their future desire to murder Egisto and their mother. In the well known scene of Electra and Orestes’ meeting after Agamenon’s death, Brian Larges production for television accentuates Harry Kupfer’s subtle dramatic setting. This meeting, when both reveal their identities, is musically expressed with a tremendous dissonant chord performed by the whole orchestra. It is not a sound conveying the happiness of a sweetly awaited meeting. Orestes and Electra then head towards Agammenon’s enormous figure, Orestes takes the two ropes from which Agammenon is hanging and holds them with both hands as Electra did before. This dramatic image of Orestes’ union with Agammenon, with Electra by his side, symbolises the link to the decapitated father. This is a powerful visual metaphor of the bond uniting both of them. Notwithstanding the dialogue between Orestes and Electra, the breathtaking music that follows is a deep moment when both share the terrible experience of their father’s murder in the shape of a future project. Despite this, Electra starts singing “Orest! Orest! Orest!”, the music follows sweetly and lyrically while she poetically describes her brother’s face. She and Orestes express with their bodies a dark attitude and the shots of their faces show that their expressions of suffering remain with them. Harry Kupfer’s dramatic conception shows the meaning of their union, in contrast to the sweetness of the music; a clasp depicts the pain as the deepest bond that ties them together. Following the poetic climax Electra becomes increasingly sad evoking the beauty and feelings she owned when she was still a princess and they slowly approach the core moment of their meeting. When Orestes declares his intention to kill
Richard Strauss. Elektra. Wiener Philarmoniker. Conducted by Claudio Abbado. Directed for the Stage by Harry Kupfer. Directed for DVD by Brian Large. Recorded at the Vienna State Opera in 1989. DVD Opera Collection-Ediciones del Prado 2004. 11 See Hugo von Hoffmanstahl. Elektra. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1994, pp. 59-63.
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his own mother and Egisto. Electra reacts with a poetic monologue about the murder that Orestes will commit. It is a new climax in which the contrast becomes more acute, with the dimensions more typical of the expressionism: both have before them the future of a murder while Eva Marton’s voice and the orchestra express a lyricism typical of a love scene. At this point, the contrast between music and drama is expressed together in the conception with which Kupfer concludes the climax of the scene. During the sweet dialogue both take the ropes of Agamenon’s statue and gently rock as if it was a game: both perform the same movements as two boys swinging, but their faces remain covered by a terrible shadow, as big as Agamenon’s figure. The visual metaphor is wholly expressive: two children play with the ropes that tie them to their dead father, two children play, tied to the body that binds them for the bloody project of murdering their mother. Along the whole scene we have been describing, the attitudes and dramatic meanings have been captured in images by means of a subtle combination of medium shots, American shots and long shots of Electra and Orestes without using close shots. It seams the visual register is coherent with the fact that neither Electra nor Orestes make particularly expressive gesticulations as they always keep the body and facial expression of pain not as a momentary action but as a characteristic his tragic destiny has imposed over their bodies. In contrast with the absence of close-ups there is a subsequent moment in which a clasp appears with a very intense significance for the narrative, in a moment when the proximity shooting reinforces the narrative meaning. In the opera, the killing of Clitemnestra by Orestes it is not shown on stage. However, the experience of this crucial element for the ending is offered to the viewer on the DVD version of the opera thanks to the utilisation of a closeup showing Electra´s face. After Orestes enters the palace and Electra remembers she has not been given him the axe to perpetrate the crime, Electra moves towards the centre of the stage allured by a strange force. The music is full of figures in the woodwind and strings which make the tense atmosphere grow. The camera approaches her face, Electra’s lips start trembling, her eyes seem to be observing shocking scenes, her breathing agitates… The orchestral music, by means of the strings, designs an agitation in crescendo. In only a few seconds, Electra’s face, together with the music, anticipates the climax of the tragic event. A shout of the mother is heard and
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Electra shouts “Triff noch einmal!”. An orchestral shrill closes the narrative as expressive evidence of Clitemnestra’s death… In this analysis I wanted to point out the importance of how the strength of Richard Strauss’s composition enriches the dramatic concept. It is precisely the cohesion of the music with a sensitive and intelligent dramaturgy that allows this medium to transmit the opera in its global aesthetic dimensions. In fact, I have only mentioned one example and it could be considered that it does not suffice to defend the suitability of this technological medium. There are a diverse number of operas on DVD which I could have dealt with, however I have preferred to focus on a commentary on Electra for one reason. Electra shows a great balance between music and drama. Brian Large’s shooting strategies show the detail of the dramatic action, but there is not a single moment of exaggeration in the attention given to the dramatic, nor a loss of attention to the musical aspect. As a matter of fact, this has made me consider Brian Large’s Electra as a suitable opera to defend the possibilities of technology from an aesthetic point of view. This does not mean that there aren’t clear instances of how the DVD can damage the aesthetic experience of an opera, for example, when the image is more a vehicle to highlight the singers’ musical skills rather than the dramatic expression and narrative meaning. It is also true there are occasions when a very intense dramatic approach does not prevent the music from enjoying an enormous relevance, as in Peter Sellars’ filming of his own scenic direction of Händel’s Theodora 12. In this case there is an extraordinary tendency towards using close-ups and extreme close-ups reflecting the singer’ intense dramatic work. There are even framings taken from aerial perspectives, unusual in the genre of opera shooting. Peter Sellars’ direction concept for the actors is deeply connected to the music (it can be logically claimed that he manages to give shape to the seriousness and emotion to the spirituality of Händel’s music). However, these shots and the level of perception in the image so close to the singers’ bodies do not imply a decrease in the attention devoted to the music, but they do perfectly complement with the enormous quality this oratorio has from the musical point of view. The description of some dramatic solutions proposed by an artistic team of stage director and designers regarding Elektra should only show how important the necessarily free decisions of these artists are in order to conclude the path of freedom, which is
Georg Friedrich Händel. Theodora. Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Conducted by William Christie. Stage and Video direction: Peter Sellars. Recorded at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in june 1996. Warner Music Vision, 1996.
HéCTOR JULIO PéREZ LóPEZ
at the beginning of the creation of every opera13. Having access to an increasingly available repertoire of opera in DVD provides us with new material support to analyse and to criticize opera from the point of view of the coherence between score and dramaturgy, thus offering a deeper aesthetic perspect-
ive on opera. It is also interesting to confirm that in keeping with the usual bigger importance of the scene and drama in the contemporary operistic world it becomes more frequent to come across opera shootings made with a richer and more expressive audio-visual criteria.14
About the Author Prof. Héctor Julio Pérez López Dr Héctor Julio Pérez is professor of audiovisual communication at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and manager of the PhD program of music at the same university.
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Taking into account the absence of academic works about the topic I have discussed I would propose, as an interesting comparative strategy, to read my description of Brian Large’s filmic work following the analysis of Elektras music in L’avant scène Opéra: Strauss/Elektra, vol. 92, december 1992. Paris. 14 The operas directed for TV by Brian Large could be included as an evident reference. But there are some DVDs above all of important European Opera Houses characterised by the high artistic level of stage design and direction and subtler filming strategies. Some good examples are: Claudio Monteverdi. Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria. Orchestra La Scintilla. Conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Stage Director: Klaus-Michael Grüber. Directed for Video By Felix Breisach. Recorded at the Opernhaus Zürich in 2002. ARTHAUS Musik 2002. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Così fan tutte. Staatskapelle Berlin. Conducted by Daniel Baremboim. Stage and DVD direction: Dories Dörrie. Recorded at the Deutsche Staatsoper. Euroarts 2001. Gaetano Donizzetti. Lucia di Lammermoor. Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra National de Lyon. Conducted by Evelino Pidò. Stage Directors: Patrice Caurier/Moshe Leiser. Directed for Video by Don Kent. Recorded at the Opéra National de Lyon, January 2002. TDK Recording Media Europe 2005.
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