| Popis: |
While advanced professional skills and supremely coordinarted performances are crucial for the demanding art of opera, immersive theatre practices seem less than welcome on the operatic stage. This paper analyzes the successful transformation of opera into an immersive performance under the direction of Graham Vick (Mozart’s “Idomeneo” renamed “King Idomeneo” at the Birmingham Opera Company). The audience are immersed in the performance but only for short periods of time, due to the zoning of the performance space, the “wandering fourth wall”, and the switching between the immersive mode and the spectator mode (the prerequisite operatic separation between the stage and the audience nevertheless is maintained throughout the performance). Vick’s approach allows to involve amateur performers into the production and to make a complicated piece of theatre comprehensible and effective even for the unprepared audience. This approach is part of the Birmingham Opera Company artistic agenda, which takes heed of the current shift of theatre conventions, focusing on the new mode of the spectator-stage interaction. |
