From the orchestra pit to virtual reality, opera has continually integrated new technologies and evolved alongside them. This course will trace this dialectical relationship with a focus on technologies of 20th and 21st centuries. How has technology transformed opera’s aesthetics, artistic production, and audience reception? What concerns have arisen from the use of technology in opera? Have technological developments changed opera’s fundamental modes of representation? Has the exhibition of opera through multimedia platforms changed public engagement with the art form?
To pursue these questions, we will engage closely with specific operas as well as opera films, radio operas, machines, virtual reality experiences, and contemporary music-theater. We will also read texts ranging from artist statements to historical reports drawn from the fields of philosophy of science, media studies, musicology and performance studies. These texts will offer conceptual frameworks to guide our discussions of the specific art works, as we search to articulate opera’s uniquely cross-disciplinary (or “undisciplined”) modes of representation as an ever-changing constellation of sound, sight, and song.
This course will be conducted in English with readings in English and German. If you are concerned about your language abilities, please contact the instructor after the first session.
- Kursleiter/in: Amy Stebbins