Future of Opera

Description

Panel at Mahindra Humanities Center, Transmedia Arts Seminar, Harvard University
This roundtable brings together a diverse group of opera practitioners and scholars focusing on the transmedia flow of opera in the twenty-first century. The global pandemic offered an opportunity for opera to spearhead innovative transmedia storytelling formats that move fluidly across media boundaries, artistic genres, and geographical borders. Long considered innovative storytelling formats, site-specificity, VR, and video games have influenced opera in multi-faceted ways, transporting audiences into an “otherworld.” Recently, we have witnessed a shift towards site-specific reimagination of repertory opera (Twilight: Gods by Lyric Opera of Chicago and Michigan Opera Theater), gamification of opera (Yuval Sharon’s Die Walküre Act III, White Snake Projects’ PermaDeath, Death by Life), and a radical re-conception of opera as observed in VR – and zoom – operas (On Site Opera’s Lesson Plan, Kamala Sankaram’s Parksville Murders, all decisions will be made by consensus). Engaging with transmedia aesthetics through the lens of cross-border exchanges, transnational co-productions, and co-creations will offer deeper insights into the distributed mode of creative agency in our contemporary scene today which ventures away from a hegemonic framework. In doing so, we aim to contribute to new transmedia frameworks in situating opera studies today. Scrutinizing the media integrated into the live productions will lead outwards to a critical issue concerning media as place-making, as well as the intermedial affinities between opera and other remotely delivered compositions in the here-and-now.

Period	29 Sept 2022
Event title	Future of Opera: Panel at Mahindra Humanities Center, Transmedia Arts Seminar, Harvard University
Event type	Other
Location	United StatesShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International