Music Theater

La niña helada, crónica de una ópera contemporánea


Resumen

Crónica sobre la génesis, creación y producción de La niña helada, ópera de cámara experimental interdisciplinaria, con libreto de Mariano Saba y música de Patricia Martínez, encargada por el Staathsteater Darmstadt, luego de que la compositora fuera seleccionada en el Concurso Internacional de Teatro Musical de Darmstadt (Alemania, 2015). Fueron estrenadas las primeras ocho escenas en el marco del mítico Curso Internacional de Nueva Música de Darmstadt, y la versión completa en el Centro Cultural Recoleta en 2017.


Palabras clave: nueva ópera, ópera contemporánea, La niña helada, ópera experimental, teatro musical, interdisciplina, arte interdisciplinario.



Abstract

Chronicle about the genesis, creation and production of La niña helada (The frozen Little girl), interdisciplinary experimental chamber opera, with a libretto by Mariano Saba and music by Patricia Martínez. It was commissioned by Staathsteater Darmstadt, after the composer was selected at the International Music Theatre Competition Darmstadt (Germany, 2015). The first eight scenes were premiered in the framework of the legendary International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, and the full version at the Recoleta Cultural Center in 2017.


Key words: new opera, contemporary opera, The frozen girl, experimental opera, Music theater, interdiscipline, interdisciplinary art.



Resumo

Crônica sobre a gênese, criação e produção de La niña helada (Menina gelada), ópera de câmara experimental interdisciplinar, com um livreto de Mariano Saba e música de Patricia Martínez, encomendada por Staathsteater Darmstadt, depois que o compositor foi selecionado no Concurso Internacional de Teatro de Música Darmstadt (Alemanha, 2015). As primeiras oito cenas foram estreadas no marco do lendário Curso Internacional de Música Nova em Darmstadt, e a versão completa no Centro Cultural Recoleta em 2017.


Palavras-chave: nova ópera, ópera contemporânea, menina gelada, ópera experimental, teatro musical, teatro musical, interdisciplinar.

Symposium: The Staatskapelle Berlin at 450 – A Review

“Crisis and Prosperity: The Development of Prussian Court Music from 1713 to 1806“

Venue: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater
Date: 7th- 9th October 2016

Call for Papers
Deadline: 1st April 2016

From 7th- 9th October 2016, the Staatskapelle Berlin will hold its second international symposium, in cooperation with the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, Berlin-Brandenburg. The Staatskapelle celebrates its 450th anniversary in 2020, making it one of the oldest orchestras in the world. Ahead of this occasion, the Staatsoper is holding a series of annual symposia devoted to the history of the Staatskapelle Berlin and its international significance. This year’s topic, ‘Crisis and Prosperity: The Development of Prussian Court Music from 1713 to 1806’, places a focus on the 18th century, from the dissolution of the Prussian Court in 1713 to the collapse of the ‘old’ Prussia in 1806.

This is a re-reading of Corneille's relationship with music, drawing from the machine play "Andromède" (and scholarship on "Andromède") and comparing its particularities with Corneille's theoretical work from ten years later. The idea is that we have too often relied on the theoretical writings to explain his relationship with music, whereas Corneille was much more experimental (and opera-friendly) in practice than he claimed to be in the _Discours_. "Andromède" without the _Discours_ can be read as a kind of laboratory for early French opera.

Pavlos Carrer [Paolo Carrer] decided to compose "Despo" in summer 1875 after visiting the then newly-founded Athens Conservatoire. As part of his high mission to establish a national music school with opera as its crowning achievement, according to the model of European national music schools, the composer undertook to set to music a melodramatic work, entitled "Despo", written by a drama teacher at the Conservatoire, Antonios Manousos, in order for it to be used as a practice piece by the “students of vocal and instrumental music”. Apart from being a drama teacher, the Corfiot Antonios Manousos was also a prolific poet, author and translator, distinguished for his contribution to the collection and publication of folk songs. As a result, the one-act play he suggested to Carrer, The tragic death of Despo and her daughters-in-law at Dimoula’s tower, is imbued with his hands-on and in-depth contact with the Greek folk literary tradition, and theatre.

Arnold Jacobshagen: Zur Kategorie des verismo in den Opern Puccinis und seiner Zeitgenossen, in: Puccini-Handbuch, hrsg. von Richard Erkens, Stuttgart/Weimar (Metzler-Verlag) 2017 (Druck in Vorbereitung). Mit der Kategorie des verismo wird traditionell die einer »realistischen« Ästhetik verpflichtete Hauptströmung der italienischen Oper am Ende des 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts in Verbindung gebracht. Die genaue Definition des Begriffs ist in der Forschung allerdings ebenso umstritten wie die Frage, welche Rolle Puccini in diesem Zusammenhang zuerkannt wird. Wenn etwa Ray MacDonald im Untertitel seiner Puccini-Monographie den Komponisten als »König des Verismo« bezeichnet, so vertritt er damit eine exzentrische Position, die in der Puccini-Literatur eher eine Ausnahme bildet. Gewöhnlich wird Pucci-nis Verhältnis zum verismo zwiespältig gesehen, und nicht wenige Autoren haben einige Mü-he darauf verwandt, in dieser Hinsicht eine klare Abgrenzung zwischen Puccini und den »veristischen« Opern einiger seiner italienischen Zeitgenossen vorzunehmen.

Since his debut with the company ‘Il Carrozzone’ (1970), Federico Tiezzi has stood out because of his peculiar dramaturgy which makes of figurative arts its hallmark. In fact his contemporary education as art historian entails a fruitful permeation between stage and icon which allows him to establish himself as a precursor of the so-called ‘Image Theatre’. In all the plays and operas he has put on, his rigorous visual grammar brings about suggestions and interferences that deeply innervate his scene setting. Moreover, reference to Aby Warburg’s teachings clearly shows up in his way of portraying the character on an intertextual backdrop, as well as in his pondered study of gestural expressiveness that he develops having as guide the Pathosformel’s theory.
This essay aims at investigating Tiezzi’s poetics through the analysis of an opera production that clearly display the osmosis between scene and figurative arts: Bellini’s Norma, famous for the unusual collaboration of the Pop-Art star Mario Schifano in making the stage curtains and the backdrops. Schifano’s naïf art fits into a neoclassical-inspired set which is explicitly reminiscent of Jacques-Louis David’s painting, arousing quite an evocative aesthetic and semantic contrast.

The book series “Ottomania” researches cultural transfers between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, with the performing arts as its focus.
In Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. IV: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature, the series continues to explore one of the most popular subjects of eighteenth-century art: the seraglio and its harem. This volume provides a deeper understanding of the seraglio’s various manifestations in the artworks, music and theatre of the Austrian/ Habsburg and central European regions, including interconnections with Italy and France, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
The studies examine descriptions of the seraglio by European diplomats, the seraglio’s visual traces in European artworks, and depictions of the seraglio in eighteenth-century Austrian Singspiele. They also consider seraglios from the Ottoman point of view and investigate the music of the seraglio in eighteenth-century opera.

Immersive theatre is an exciting and dynamic art form which emerged as a popular new theatre practice in 1980s,  stemming from the combination of installation art, physical and visual theatre practices (Machon, 2013: xv).
The research for this dissertation is twofold. Secondary research is in the form of a comprehensive literature review which analyses previous writing and journals published on intermediality and immersive theatre. Primary research came from an online survey held from July to August of 2017 to discover the attitudes towards the art form. The results from these studies are discussed and summarised.
This dissertation questions how contemporary theatre companies create dynamic and stimulating performance works for today’s audiences. It aims to discover how many people attend performances such as those known as ‘immersive’ (to completely surround or fully involve an audience) or ‘site-specific’ (performance work created specifically for a space or place). It will address the issues of intermediality and immersive performance art and how soundscapes can be created to fully involve audiences in work which is relevant to the political and cultural climate of the twenty-first century. The dissertation will reference the work of Living Structures, Smoosh & Smoosh and Heiner Goebbels with a heavy emphasis on exploring the music used within selected pieces of work.
This dissertation will argue that there is significance for an immersive music theatre synthesis which is reflected through ticket sales and performances produced in Britain. It will reflect upon how music theatre art can become a catalyst for opening accessibility to work previously viewed as ‘high art’. The area of study spans the last two centuries. It finds that we are in danger of losing sight of seeing immersive theatre technique as ‘art’ but instead they are becoming fully sellable products which are more like attractions than reasons to tell a story. We may also have to rely on big name brands to help support our work as artists as immersive theatre may or may not be a popular form of theatre.
The main body of this dissertation is contained in chapter five where there is a discussion how intermediality is used within immersive theatre and to what extent. The chapter also discusses whether intermediality could be viewed as an aesthetic of immersive (music) theatre.

À partir des années 1860, les œuvres de Jacques Offenbach connurent un succès important au Brésil, où elles contribuèrent à l’essor du théâtre musical et à l’apparition de nouvelles formes artistiques comme la burleta et la revista do ano. Le projet de recherche Offenbach au Brésil. Circulations, interprétations et transferts culturels propose d’analyser les modalités de diffusion et d’appropriation de l’opérette française au Brésil. Trois axes problématiques seront privilégiés : 1) les circulations des hommes (acteurs, directeurs de théâtres, musiciens) et des imprimés (livrets, partitions, caricatures) ; 2) les interprétations des œuvres (théâtrales et musicales) ; 3) la brésialinnisation du répertoire (parodies, métissages et invention de nouveaux genres).

This document brings together three essays that I published on my blog the biting point in 2016, on the subject of music and theatre.

The first essay confronts the unstable and dissatisfactory category of 'music theatre', via a book review of Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi's The New Music Theatre (2008). Through the course of the next two essays, I then attempt to reconstruct a sturdier definition of music theatre, on the basis of newly posited definitions of 'music' and 'theatre', inspired by Richard Schechner and Alain Badiou. My listener-oriented definition of 'music' relies on a concept derived from theatre: becoming-music as a dramaturgy of sound. This means that both 'theatre' and 'music' are defined according to the same basic operation—presentation-as-world—yet, while the 'world' of theatre is always mimetic, the 'world' of music-qua-music is always exceptional to the 'real' world. Thus, the operation of theatre can be considered a solution to the impossibility of musical reality: music theatre is the 'presentation-as-world' of the musically possible.

The picture of 'music theatre' that emerges from this framework is a very broad one, which necessarily includes all live musical performance. In the third essay, I outline a theory of musical genre that differentiates between the various aesthetic criteria that arbitrate within this wide field, making different demands of different performances on the basis of different genres. At the heart of this theory is a notion, borrowed from Schechner and Victor Turner, of music theatre as ritual. The result is a quasi-anthropological survey of genre rituals (from pop and jazz, to opera and experimental music) as they relate to the 'worlds' of music and theatre, the modality of music's 'appearance' within the fictional world presented, and the 'aesth-ethic' criteria of success within each ritual performance.

Arnold Jacobshagen / Elisabeth Schmierer (Hrsg.): Sachlexikon des Musiktheaters. Laaber-Verlag 2016
667 Seiten mit 163 Abbildungen.
Geb. € 78,– (Subskriptionspreis bis 31.10.2016, danach ca. € 88,–)
ISBN 978–3–89007–781–9
Das Musiktheater mit seinen Hauptgattungen Oper, Ballett und Musical ist unter den darstellenden Künsten die beliebteste: Es zieht in Deutschland weitaus mehr Besucher an als das Sprechtheater. Das Sachlexikon des Musiktheaters erschließt erstmals umfassend und alphabetisch die Praxis und Theorie sowie die Gattungen und Schauplätze des Musiktheaters in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Es richtet sich nicht nur an alle Interesssenten und Besucher des Musiktheaters, sondern ist als Kompendium für angehende Sänger, Orchestermusiker, Dirigenten, Dramaturgen oder Regisseure ebenso konzipiert wie für Studierende und Lehrende an Universitäten, Hochschulen und weiterführenden Schulen.
Ein zentrales Augenmerk gilt dabei der Bühnenpraxis: Wie sieht eine Sängerlaufbahn aus? Welche rechtlichen und ökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen sind im Musiktheater zu berücksichtigen? Was geschieht beim Umbau des Bühnenbildes? Wie werden Requisiten, Kostüme und Kulissen hergestellt? Wie teuer ist die Oper wirklich? Welche Medien werden bei Produktionen des Musiktheaters eingesetzt? Ebenso umfassend wird die Theorie des Musiktheaters behandelt, von den musik- und theaterwissenschaftlichen Fachbegriffen bis zur historischen Darstellung aller einschlägigen Gattungen und Genres. Nicht zuletzt werden auch die nationalen und internationalen Theaterzentren in Städteartikeln vorgestellt.
Die breite inhaltliche Ausrichtung spiegelt sich auch im Spektrum der Autorinnen und Autoren: Neben Musik- und Theaterwissenschaftlern haben auch zahlreiche renommierte Experten aus der Bühnenpraxis, darunter Intendanten, Dramaturgen, Künstler, Bühnentechniker und Kulturmanager am Sachlexikon des Musiktheaters mitgewirkt.

Thinking of music performance, we usually consider the action happening on the theater or concert stage, in front of spectators. However, performance space surrounding the spectators, its interior and exterior architectural decoration, as well as fashion of spectators and their habits are also constituent elements of a performance, supplementing the experience of a live event. Decoration elements, such as mythological compositions painted on theater ceilings, state insignia placed above the proscenium, or portraits of distinguished playwrights, composers or performers on theatre facades reflect the attitudes of past times and ideologies of political powers patronizing performances; sculptures accumulated over the time in theaters' foyers visually represent historical memory of the space becoming (national) shrines to performing arts. Theaters and other performance spaces are architectural artworks, often representing the pinnacle in artistic careers of their architects and interior designers, frequently appropriating the status of urban iconic symbols. The conference will focus on visual programs and decorations of spaces in which musical performances occur and the self-representation of audiences attending performances. All types of performance venues and performances which include music should be considered, including concerts and music theatre, religious ceremonies, contemporary popular music events, urban spectacles, pageantries and parades. Proposals are invited concerning: (1) Architectural interior and exterior decorations of performance spaces; (2) Reflections of political power presented in theatrical performances; (3) Ideological context of religious rituals and their spaces: (4) Political power demonstrated in public spectacles and parades; (5) Theater and concert hall architecture: (6) Spectators and audiences (habits, fashion, hair-styling, behavior): (7) Interpretation and issues concerning opera staging and scenography in general English is preferred language for the conference presentations.

Σειρά 50 ωριαίων ντοκιμαντέρ ιστορικού και εθνογραφικού περιεχομένου για την ιστορία της ελληνικής μουσικής από την αρχαιότητα ως σήμερα. Τα είδη που παρουσιάζονται για πρώτα φορά όλα μαζί είναι: αρχαίο μέλος, βυζαντινό μέλος, δημοτικό τραγούδι, αστικο-λαϊκή μουσική, έντεχνο-λαϊκό τραγούδι, ελληνική έντεχνη μουσική (Επτανησιακή Σχολή, Εθνική Σχολή Μουσικής), πρωτοποριακή μουσική, ηλεκτρο-ακουστική μουσική, θεατρική μουσική, κινηματογραφική μουσική.
Το ντοκιμαντέρ βασίζεται σε αρχειακή και βιβλιογραφική έρευνα, σε ανάλυση μουσικών τεκμηρίων ήχου και εικόνας από επιτόπιες εθνογραφικές έρευνες της Ρενάτας Δαλιανούδη, καθώς και σε συζήτηση με 34 πανεπιστημιακούς καθηγητές, ερευνητές και καλλιτέχνες για κάθε είδος μουσικής. Οι εκπομπές πλαισιώνονται από μουσικά παραδείγματα (ζωντανά ή ηχογραφημένα).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BAtz0PRXW4

Teaching performance theory in an anthropology program requires relating the act and practice of performance to the broad questions posed by the field of anthropology. In the most general sense, these questions lead to a comparative analysis of human similarities and differences in all times and over all geographical locations. Such an analysis also
involves the four theoretical subfields of anthropology: archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology.

Nicht nur für das Theater geschriebene Musik verfügt über eine theatrale Schicht. Diese nicht als etwas der Musik Hinzugefügtes, sondern als etwas genuin Musikalisches zu begreifen, ist das Hauptanliegen dieses Buches. Der zweite Schlüsselbegriff neben dem Theatralen ist Latenz. Auf der Ebene von in der Musik latent angelegten Schichten geht es um autobiographische Verweise und Leerstellen in Werken von Alban Berg, Franz Schubert und György Kurtág. Allen diesen Werken ist nicht nur das Vorhandensein einer solchen latenten autobiographischen Schicht gemeinsam, sondern auch ein als modern zu bezeichnendes Verhältnis zur Form: das Fragmentarische. In diesem Spannungsfeld zwischen Abschluss und Öffnung der Form findet die latente Theatralität der Musik ihren Ort.

This current research aims at investigating the fundamental characteristics of Gilberto Mendes's music theater. This work is divided into three parts. In the first chapter, we present a broad bibliographical review about the development of music theater genre, seeking its root from Wagner's idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, going from the experiences of the first decades of the twentieth century to its actual establishment as a practice, in the 60s. We also seek to promote a dialogue between Gilberto Mendes's works and contemporary researches on music theater, especially Salzman & Dési (2008) and Roesner & Rebstock (2012), in order to insert the composer into the international discussion about the genre. In the second chapter, we scrutinize the main constituent features of the composer's compositional language of music theater, in order to identify its most recurrent and idiomatic processes. Finally, in the third chapter we analyze four Gilberto Mendes's works: Cidade (1964), Son et Lumière (1968), O Último Tango em Vila Parisi (1987) and Escorbuto - Cantos da Costa (2006). In order to develop the analyses, we adapted Nicholas Cook's musical multimedia theory (1998), so that we could identify types of relations and solutions operated by Gilberto Mendes in the composition with artistic elements from diverse origins. We consider that this research will contribute with music theater researches done outside major European centers, in addition to increasing the scope of studies about this genre in Brazil and, especially, about Gilberto Mendes's production.

A new multimedia opera by composer Jason Thorpe Buchanan & librettist Darcie Dennigan

SYNOPSIS: Knut Hamsun’s novel Sult is a point of departure for a libretto by award-winning poet Darcie Dennigan, exploring themes of psychological decay, irrationality, and self-destruction. Oumenos is a starving and delusional young writer who is unwilling to compromise his work even as his intellect and body gradually deteriorate. He is split in two; the baritone and soprano form a composite, each depicting aspects of his inner/outer selves and suppressed madness. His hunger and self-disgust lead him to consider stealing bread, and to thoughts of self-mutilation. He despises his baseness. He is a dog. He is drawn to Ylajali, a young girl who appears to him in various manifestations. At the bloodbank, Ylajali draws his blood. At the spermbank, she coaxes his orgasm. In a butchershop, Ylajali as countergirl displays the meat before him... (synopsis, video+more at www.hungeropera.com)

The Star of Tonkin: Alexandra Myrial [David-Neel] Behind the Scenes of the 1895-1896 Opera Season in Hanoi and Haiphong [In French]

This article sheds light on the prehistory of the theaters of Hanoi and Haiphong in studying the sequence of events that occurred during the season 1895-1896. Special attention will be paid to the the main actress and singer of the troupe: Alexandra Myrial, known today as Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969). Sources include: local and international press articles (mainly Le Courrier d'Haiphong); a special issue of the Courrier d'Haiphong in which a detailed presentation of the troupe is featured; a letter written by Myrial to the general governor of Indochina and other archive documents held in the archive collections of the Archives nationales d'outre-mer; letters from Myrial's father to his daughter, kept at the writer's home in Digne-les-Bains; a long episode of a so-far unpublished novel by Alexandra Myrial also kept in the archive funds of the writer's home. Based on this material, new light can be shed on the understudied fin de siècle wave of touring actors and musicians. Simultaneously, one can better understand the complex issues pertaining to the career of an actress and her self-fashioning at the end of nineteenth century.

Corporeity can be shown as an important study element of the relations between individuals, indicating a singular modus for the development of cognitive-affective processes. The aim of this study was to develop a reflection, starting from the analysis of a creative process that involved the realization of a poetic-theatrical experiment, in order to investigate how the dynamics between the word and the subtext were processed, using corporeity as argument for the explanation of the signification process. The thesis that I defend is that corporeity is the element that propitiate the process of signification, and the subtext being the in-between-place of this communication, establishing this dynamic as a pedagogy of the theatrical event. The dramaturgy of corporeity proposes a working way, originating from an intense intimate dynamization between the sensorial, corporeal, affective, aesthetical, esthesical, volitional, synaesthesical and imagery perceptions developed at the moment of the actors’ creative process. The working procedure addressing the dramaturgy of corporeity would also be a methodological alternative for the actors to learn to understand themselves as artists-educators and on how to make their work a potentiator of the link between these two words. In this study, the poetic-theatrical experiment, based on the text Prometheus Chained, by Aeschylus, was carried out as fieldwork, in order to foster the reflexive motes necessary for understanding the moments of aesthetic living, essential to an understanding of how pedagogy of the theatrical event works. With this work, it was possible to elucidate a differentiated way of operating the cognitive-affective processes, which occurs through the relations of corporeity. This fact made it possible to establish a singular means of educational, cognitive-affective processes, detached from traditional meanings in the field of education which usually think of them when focused through cognitive cognitive-encephalic analyzes. Thus, it was possible to observe the experiential relationships that occur during the theatrical event as an important field in the area of education, which has not yet received an explanatory approach as developed in this research.

This paper is a critical overview of the society-shaping importance of the many facets of A(i)da Overton Walker’s life and work as the foremost African American stage performer at the turn of the century. Through her singing, acting, choreography, dance, teaching and mentoring, theatre production, intellectual writings, and cross-dressing performance Aida Overton Walker successfully subverted stereotypes of class, race and gender during the social upheaval and white-mob violence of the Gilded Age and early 1900s, while making her living on the popular stage. Overton was a mother of modern dance, proponent of feminist black pride, a race leader along with W. E. B. Du Bois and others, and a mentor for younger black female stage performers to carry on her work of increasing racial understanding internationally. This essay argues the urgent need for a feminist biographer to write a comprehensive biography of Overton’s life and work, as well as to publish her collected writings, and published interviews and reviews of her work. Laying the groundwork for this biography I outline facets of Overton’s work, along with cultural historians’ commentary on the importance of some of these facets, as well as proposing my own interpretations, questions, and suggestions for further research. In an appendix I provide a time-line drawn from many sources, which I hope will serve as a starting point for A(i)da Overton Walker’s biographer. By seeing how Overton successfully resisted classism, racism, and sexism, and modeled human greatness during dark times raises the bar for our own aspirations to shape a more just society today.

This paper looks into the concept of ‘Design as Theatre’ and how design is used within music theatre, opera and musical theatre to drive and re-enforce the political or story points being portrayed to an audience. Using examples from history and the contemporary, this paper explores how theatre design has changed and why. The paper also asks how technology influences our theatre making and design. Throughout this paper I focus on apprising theatre design and how elements can be used to create new work whilst informing the development of music theatre art.

Chapter One focuses on historical contexts and the concept of design as performance, as well as introducing artists who will be the focus of this paper. Chapter Two concentrates on design, space and the audience and how the three interact. Chapter Three looks at how design can help develop music theatre work as well as the establishment of an art form, which utilises design elements in a non-conventional way.

This paper concludes by considering whether we should be contemplating re-establishing the philosophy of new music theatre or merely work to further establish it and how design can help us achieve both the former and the latter.

Premieres of Petar Stojanović’s operettas The girl from the Garrett [Liebchen am Dach, 1917] and The Duke of Reichstadt [Der Herzog von Reichstadt, 1921] were covered extensively in the Viennese press (Neue Freie Presse, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Neues Wiener Journal etc.); judging by the number of reviews, they could have been favourably compared to the premieres of a state opera. Chronologically, Stojanović’s operettas belong to the so-called “Silver age of operetta” (1901−1920), whose main representative was a composer of Hungarian origin, Franz Lehár, whose works reflect a music equivocation that evokes the national fragmentation of the Danube monarchy. The author of the libretto in both operettas was Viktor Léon, who also wrote the libretto for Lehar’s operetta The Merry Widow [Die lustige Witwe, 1905]. Both operettas were performed at The Carltheater in Vienna, which, apart from the Theater an der Wien, was considered the second leading operetta theatre in the first and the second flowering period of operetta. At the time of the premieres of Stojanović’s operettas, his name was not unknown in Viennese musical circles. The kind of reputation he enjoyed in Vienna as a composer, violinist and violin teacher was the starting point for many reviews on him, while his operettas provoked strong, often contradictory reactions. The paper analyses these two operettas, as mixtum compositum, in the context of socio-cultural and political milieu of Vienna, at the time of their first performances.

Children’s musical theater, the broad focus of this collection, consists of the children’s musical, family musical, and young adult musical. The children’s musical is an amateur phenomenon primarily occurring in non-commercial venues, whereas the family musical is a commercial genre that appeals to both children and adults. The young adult musical is a fast-growing subcategory of commercial musical theater; it speaks to the sexual and social concerns of the 15- to 25-year-olds. Theater-leasing companies play a major role in the development and promotion of musicals for children and are a driving force in children’s active participation in musical theater.  The introduction and other excerpts are available here: https://www.routledge.com/Children-Childhood-and-Musical-Theater/Ruwe-Leve/p/book/9781472475336

In 1791, the new impresario Prospero Franceschetti organized an extraordinary carnival season of three serious operas in the Teatro di Cittadella at Reggio Emilia. Bianchi's La morte di Cesare, Andreozzi's Virginia and Sarti's Giulio Sabino added to a cycle of classical tragedies all glorifying the revolutionary rising of Roman republicans and rebels against tyranny. Domenico Bedini was the star singer of all three operas, Francesco Fontanesi the genius of their stage sets. The season was organized by self-confident citizens from Reggio on the edge of their own revolutionary rising against the despotic rule of duke Ercole III d'Este from Modena. Since the correspondence of the impresario Franceschetti is preserved in the state archive at Reggio, his dealings with the authorities, with the dancers and the singers and with Bedini as the master-mind behind La morte di Cesare can be reconstructed in detail. The original Italian texts of the letters will be contained in a seperate appendix.

Wir befinden uns mitten in der Zeit der 5. Phase der Informationsrevolution, und mit einem Paradigmenwechsel der Wirklichkeitswahrnehmung vielleicht in der größten, die die Menschheit je erlebt hat. Noch ist unbekannt, wie stark sich die Welten vermengen werden. Eine „face-to-face-Kommunikation“ ist nicht mehr der ausschließliche Parameter für Realität. Der Mensch muss sein Verständnis von realem Handeln und Wahrnehmen in einer Zeit der medialen Reizüberflutung überdenken, denn das ist womöglich der natürliche Zustand, auf den sich die Menschheit hinbewegt.
Einen Gegenpol bietet die performative Kunst und damit alle „live“ - Erlebnisse, die traditionell auf der Anwesenheit und der Interaktion von Menschen mit Menschen beruhen, wie Konzerte der U- und E-Musik, Theater und Oper. Ich stelle jedoch bewusst die Bedeutung des experimentellen zeitgenössischen Musiktheaters in den Mittelpunkt. Denn es verbindet mit seiner experimentellen Befragung der Wirklichkeit alle medialen Formen der traditionellen Musik, des Theaters und des Musiktheaters mit einst avantgardistischen Performances, Bildender Kunst in Form von installativen Ansätzen und einer bis zum extremsten getriebenen Befragung der Möglichkeiten der Medien als Ausweitungen der Menschen, als dem Menschen Vorangehendes und ihn Bestimmendes, als Prothesen.
Angeregt durch mein Engagement als Regieassistentin unter Manos Tsangaris bei der Inszenierung der installation opera Batsheba.Eat the History! an der Berliner Staatsoper und bei den Donaueschinger Musiktagen 2009 sind mir diese Chancen besonders deutlich geworden, denn im performativen Raum befindet sich der Mensch in einem Zwischenraum zwischen virtueller und physisch-realer Welt. In dieser Arbeit werden Tsangaris‘ Stategien unter der Prämisse untersucht, auf welche Art das Musik-Theater der medialen Reizüberflutung etwas entgegensetzen kann, und ob der Rezipient in die Lage versetzt wird, sich selbst wieder als körperlichen Menschen und die Zeit als Moment zu erleben. Wenn das funktioniert, wird auch der „Zauber“, der unsere Welt ausmacht, wieder spürbar.

Nos anos 1860, uma febre de novo tipo parece ganhar o Rio de Janeiro: Offenbach e suas óperas buffa, representadas em francês, traduzidas em português ou parodiadas por autores brasileiros, dominam a cada dia mais os teatros da cidade, para desgosto dos defensores da moral, do bom gosto e da literatura nacional. A origem da epidemia encontra-se em Mlle Aimée e a trupe parisiense do Alcazar lyrique, nas paródias de Vasques no Phenix Dramatica e nos espetáculos do Gymnasio, que apresentam os charmes da opereta a um público numeroso, socialmente diversificado e majoritariamente masculino.
Como medir a difusão das obras de Offenbach no Brasil para além de um discurso voluntariamente metafórico sobre a febre tomando de assalto a capital e as marés de espectadores se apressando para as portas do Alcazar ? Quais foram as modalidades de circulação dos espetáculos, mas também da música, cuja difusão não se limitava às portas dos teatros e incluía também os salões das famílias mais respeitáveis da capital? Como analisar as interpretações e as diferentes significações atribuídas ao repertório de Offenbach no Brasil, assim como as suas consequências sobre a produção nacional?

This paper delineates a musical phenomenon, which I term the “difficult voice,” and observes its use in three vocal compositions by Jewish composers written in three different post-Holocaust time periods: Chaya Czernowin’s (b.1957, Haifa) plotless and wordless opera Pnima...ins innere (1999); Meredith Monk’s (b.1942, New York) theater-opera Quarry (1976); and Arnold Schoenberg’s (1874, Vienna - 1951, Los Angeles) cantata A Survivor from Warsaw (1947). These compositions stage their climaxes through multiple moments of repetitions in which textures are often constructed through the simultaneous and homophonic play of several instruments, as well as the singers and/or the narrator.

My analysis shows these musical phenomena to function as the drive of the “difficult voice.”  The difficult voice does not sing but only vocalizes and speaks (while other parts of the composition sing).  They are important because, arguably, they are the manifestation of these composers’ creativity to integrate the apocalyptic scene of the Jewish Holocaust that they have only learned through secondhand accounts with their own issues, whether indirectly relating to the Holocaust or something else.  Scenes of “going to die,” exodus, and destroying are depicted, all of which project massive anxiety and anger.  The composition of such scenes results from the unspeakable and incomprehensible representation of the secondhand Holocaust which their authors had never experienced but with which they wanted to identify.

The case studies analyze the use of vocalization and of orchestration of repetitions in selected instances of the “difficult voice.”  Several modes of the transmission of the Holocaust are located and explored: the unconscious, the general media, and communications that took place within the composers’ familial and public spheres.  Beginning with a recent work, Czerowin’s Pnima … ins innere, this paper traces the difficult voice back to Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, both locating this work as an inception of this kind of aesthetic response and showing that Holocaust trauma and the transmission of this particular trauma have been an ongoing and, to some degree, homogeneous issue across generations.

There are a range of compositional approaches and techniques to consider when producing work of a sonic nature; from decisions about source material and location, to set-up configurations and sound diffusion. The presented case studies will examine approaches taken by the composer for indoor and outdoor spaces and discuss the artistic intention of each piece within a specified space. The case study examples will range from contemporary theatrical sound designs to sound art performance and audio-visual installations. Comparisons will be made between the various disciplines of sound art in relation to theatre sound in order to seek common ground and the suggestion of a sharing of practice.