ABSTRACT
First and foremost, opera has always been a visual and highly passionate social spectacle. In this regard, contemporary stage design for opera is no different than it was in Monteverdi’s Venice or Wagner’s Bayreuth. What has changed are the specific historical conditions and the institutional, economic, social, and artistic frameworks in which opera takes place. Today, opera tends to capture the spectators’ attention with theatrically stunning, visually remarkable, and unforgettable designs rather than presenting the audience with a conventionally pleasing aesthetic of picturesque landscapes or splendid interior spaces. Opera’s new scenography is daring, deeply embedded in contemporary visual culture and aesthetics, and making increasingly potent use of recent technological developments. It is based on strategic concepts that imagistically and emblematically articulate tensions, subtexts, and inner conflicts embedded in operatic works, while reflecting the fragmentation, transience, and instability of modern reality in numerous ways. Broadly speaking, in postmodern scenography, which has become a key mode for innovation since the 1970s, directors and designers closely collaborate, overtly challenging conventions and rules, using a wide range of strategies in the visual, dramaturgical and critical reimagining of operatic works and in deconstructing opera as a medium.
