A Pop-Cultural Escape from Tautology: 21st-Century Regietheater Opera vis-à-vis Verdi’s Realism
Ryszard Daniel Golianek
degol@amu.edu.plAdam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3775-0732
Abstract
The concept of director’s opera theater, applied since the 1970s mainly in German-speaking countries, brought the genre of opera to the attention of pop-culture audiences. Regietheater operas proposed a clear turn away from the style of traditional productions, marked by elegance and conventional directing. Thus, one could say that they were a form of escape from the tautology of operatic conventions into pop-cultural contexts. While traditional Baroque and classical opera easily lent itself to modernizing approaches, the task proved more complicated in the case of Giuseppe Verdi’s realistic works, permanently coupled to the socio-historical and political situation and aesthetics of his time. This makes it all the more interesting and worthwhile to analyze directorial approaches which resulted in pop-cultural references featuring prominently in the performances of Verdi’s works. Analyzing the concepts of directors such as Mariusz Treliński, Christopher Alden, Robert Carsen, Peter Konwitschny, and Hans Neuenfels, the article attempts to delineate several specific trajectories within the general strategy of escaping tautology, which characterized earlier productions of the Italian master’s operas.
Keywords:
opera, Giuseppe Verdi, popular culture, opera directing, RegietheaterReferences
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Authors
Ryszard Daniel Golianekdegol@amu.edu.pl
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3775-0732
Ryszard Daniel Golianek - (full) Professor of Musicology in the Institute of Musicology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. His research interests include the history and aesthetics of music, mainly of the 19th century, especially the problems of expression, style, and meaning of the music of Romanticism. He also undertakes source research on Polish music of the 19th century. Recently, he has researched the problems of Polish themes in European music of 1772-1918 and the operatic works of Stanisław Moniuszko. He authored 9 books, most recently Reżyserski teatr operowy XXI wieku: Nurty i twórcy (Łodź, 2020).
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