New trends

Contemporary artists and technicians specialized in set, costume, and lighting design, take advantage of the latest technological advancements to provide audiences with immersive experiences. In the 2010 production of Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera, for example, the gods ascended vertically the rocky set to Valhalla, bathed in 3D prismatic light, and not only was I not there to witness it with my own eyes, but I don’t even know what “3D prismatic light” is.59Abbate, C., Parker, R. 2012. A history of opera, p. 372

Similarly, for the 2016 production of the opera L’amour de Loin, the lighting designer represented the Mediterranean Sea as a layer of thin, horizontal strips of LED lights that gave the set an impressive sense of movement.60https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/articles/sea-of-lights/ In 2022, Don Giovanni at the Opéra National in Paris was performed on a set of concrete buildings whose doors, windows, walls and stairs moved constantly but at a speed almost imperceptibly slow. Thus, the audience became aware of the illusion only when the viewing angle had completely changed.61https://operawire.com/opera-national-de-paris-2021-22-review-don-giovanni/ Similarly, in the Greek National Opera’s production of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck, the entire set– as well as its individual parts– rotated, resulting in the creation of constantly different spaces of stage action.

Under the heading ‘new trends’, we will find the use of new technologies, which give set and lighting designers the opportunity to impress audiences and reveal aspects of works that not even their composer could imagine.

In response to the historically unequal treatment of African-Americans, Latinx and other non-white U.S. citizens, in 2022 Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio became an activist of the Black Lives Matter movement, incarcerated in a contemporary prison in New York City.62https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2022/02/19/1081609788/fidelio-black-lives-matter-opera?t=1645306489530 In Greece, in 2021 the collective FYTA adapted the opera Orfeo, to highlight the state’s indifference to violence against members of the LGBTQIA+ community and as a tribute to the murdered activist Zak Kostopoulos. Similarly, the adaptation of La belle Hélène that you have already seen, parodies and comments on stereotypes of the past that still prevent gender equality in Greek society. In the field of contemporary technologies of creating and reproducing opera and environmental awareness, in 2013 Matthew Burtner presented the technological musical event Auksalaq. Auksalaq, a word that means ‘melting ice’ in the Inupiat language of Alaska, was presented as a series of parallel musical events about climate change, occurring simultaneously in many parts of the world. Audiences around the world could interact with the musical elements of the event through a mobile app, an element that aspired to show our planetary interconnectedness and the fact that our actions may have environmental impact on other parts of the planet.63http://matthewburtner.com/auksalaq/

Have you heard, for example, John Cage’s Europeras cycle? In these five operas, performed between 1987 and 1991, John Cage used extracts from 18th and 19th century operas that are performed live during the performance, in combination with recordings of arias. In other words, the composer did not compose new music but reused music that had been written over the past two centuries. The libretto is a collage of excerpts from earlier works in a random order, and the audience is considered part of the piece. See in the excerpt below the stage arrangement and the different actions that take place in the performance of Europeras 1 & 2 at the GNO. Listen to this musical collage and imagine the entire performance space, along with the natural sounds and the audience being part of the piece.

Many of the aforementioned new musical, aesthetic and social trends can be found in Yannis Kyriakidis’ music theatre Ask Ada, on a libretto by Theodora Delavault. The main heroine of the play is Ada Lovelace, mathematician and unwanted daughter of Lord Byron. The work’s musical language contemplates the almost independent influence of technology on human society. The piece tells the story of Ada, with the music representing perhaps her greatest achievement: the creation of the first algorithm for a computer program.65https://www.nationalopera.gr/nea-anakoinoseis/item/3819-to-ergo-ask-ada-tou-gianni-kyriakidi-erxetai-stin-gno-tv The algorithm is not only one of the techniques used by the composer in the creation of the work, but it also manifests itself ‘socially’ on stage through the alteration of the singers’ voices and the mixing of acoustic and electronic instruments. Through a sequence of soundscapes that reflect the different aspects of Lovelace’s personality and story, electronic sound becomes an integral part of her narrative, just as algorithms have become part of our everyday life. Listen to the example below to hear how the combination of headphones with electronic music instruments and voice link the story of this 19th century pioneering woman to our present-day experience.

In this section, we have taken a peek into how new trends in opera are related to the entire genre and its constitutive arts as well. Staging, stage and lighting design all benefit from the latest technological trends and inventions to add meaningful depth to productions and impress audiences. Texts become part of soundscapes or are presented in a fragmented, altered and contemporary manner. Performances can occur simultaneously online in many parts of the world, with the audience being able to interact with the music. The topics of new opera works reflect the issues that concern us and represent our experiences in contemporary society. Finally, the music offers its own parallel commentary on the texts and spectacles of the stage, through a musical language that is constantly mutating along with society.