Opera in the Media Age

This collection of essays explores the relationship between opera and the development of media technology from the late 19th to the early 21st century. Taking an international perspective, the contributing authors, each with extensive experience as scholars or practitioners of the art, cover a variety of topics including audio, video and film recording, contemporary critical responses, popular and “high brow” culture, live and recorded performance, lighting and performance technology, media marketing and advertising.

Paul Fryer is an academic, author, editor and researcher, based in Kent (UK). He has lectured and presented film screenings internationally and is a visiting professor at the Universities of Leeds, London South Bank and East London.

Edited by Paul Fryer
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 264
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7329-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1620-9
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
The Business of Opera: Opera, Advertising and the Return to Popular Culture (Paul Fryer) 7
Making Culture Popular: Opera and the Media Industries (Sam ­O’Connell) 32
Opera Criticism: State of the Art and Beyond (Daniel ­Meyer-Dinkgräfe) 43
Gods and Heroes or Monsters of the Media? (Trevor Siemens) 65
Opera and the Audio Recording Industry (Robert Cannon) 89
Opera Singers as Pop Stars: Opera Within the Popular Music Industry (Christopher Newell and George Newell) 116
Cross-Cuts and Arias: The Language of Film and Its Impact on Opera (Kevin Stephens) 149
Opera on Optical Video Disc, or the Latest (and Final?) Avatar of the Gesamtkunstwerk (Pierre Bellemare) 173
Wunderkammer: Light as a Scenographic and Dramaturgical Tool in Opera (Hansjörg Schmidt) 198
Opera, Art and Industrial Production: Lighting at the Royal Opera House, London (Nick Hunt) 212
After The Twilight of the Gods: Opera Experiments, New Media and the Opera of the Future (Michael Earley) 229
About the Contributors 249
Index 251

“original and thought-provoking…this volume is an exciting contribution to modern literature on opera…valuable”—ARSC Journal.