scholarly journals The Art of Opera: Variability of Artistic Languages of Screen Forms

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Alexandra Vadimovna Mesyanzhinova

Specifics of an artistic language of screen forms of opera and its variations (movies, TV performances, live broadcasts in movie theatres) could be explicated successfully using a case study of different interpretations of the same work. The article retrospectively illustrates variability of an artistic language of the operatic screen forms using a case study of screen adaptations of Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata (1853). The article analyzes a film-opera by Franco Zeffirelli (1982), a film-opera by Mario Lanfranchi (1968), TV-broadcast of Adrian Marthalers staging of La Traviata at Zurich Central station (2008), and the live broadcast in movie theaters of Willy Deckers production at the Metropolitan Opera (2012). The author presumes that the format of an opera-film through interacting with the audience primarily on emotional and symbolic levels appears as static. TV live broadcasts of opera productions, which have replaced filmed opera, convey the completeness and stasis of what is happening on screen thus allowing the viewer to feel the spontaneity of theatrical action and actually ushering the spectator into the space of each frame. Live broadcasts of opera performances in movie theatres create a unique symbiosis of arts: a live, devoid of stasis and predetermination, feature film emerges. Nowadays, when theatres are increasingly offering live broadcasts of their performances in Internet, it is possible to state that the operatic art is not just oriented towards the screen arts but is searching new opportunities to adapt itself to the screen format, and can no longer exist independently off the screen. All this affects the artistic language of screen and theatrical forms of the operatic art. Although the operatic art interacts well with the multimedia technologies, the issues of interpretation and transformation of the artistic forms, which arise when recordings of elapsed performances are converted to digital format and viewed on modern devices, require a very delicate approach. Tablet computers and other media devices, which are able to reproduce nearly every recording, in a certain sense, allow customization of the technical and aesthetic forms of an art piece according to the users preferences, thus introducing personalized artistic accents of a viewer.

2021 ◽  
pp. 136787792199381
Author(s):  
Geng Lin ◽  
Hao Wu ◽  
Xiaoru Xie ◽  
Fiona Fan Yang ◽  
Zuyi Lv

As a medium for delivering modernity, movie theaters have faithfully recorded the dialogue between modernity and local daily lives. In contrast to modern movie theaters, traditional cinemas are distinguished by their long history, through which they reflect the changing connotations and social construction of modernity over time. Based on detailed analysis of the historical and social characteristics of Nanguan cinema, a 100-year-old movie theater in Guangzhou, China, we reach the following two conclusions: first, shaped by local traditional culture, the practice of moviegoing localizes modernity with a distinctive grassroots feature that enlivens everyday lives; second, moviegoing at traditional theaters in modern metropolitan areas has further enriched the connotations of modernity by providing a nostalgic experience for audiences.


Author(s):  
Caroline Merz

What was the potential for the development of a Scottish film industry? Current histories largely ignore the contribution of Scotland to British film production, focusing on a few amateur attempts at narrative film-making. In this chapter, Caroline Merz offers a richer and more complex view of Scotland’s incursion into film production,. Using a case-study approach, it details a production history of Rob Roy, produced by a Scottish company, United Films, in 1911, indicating the experience on which it drew, placing it in the context of other successful British feature films such as Beerbohm’s Henry VIII, and noting both its success in Australia and New Zealand and its relative failure on the home market faced with competition from other English-language production companies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Williams

This chapter offers detailed discussion of the transmediality of theme parks and how their narratives and experiences extend across media forms. It takes Disney’s Haunted Mansion as an extended case study, a ride which has been turned into a feature film, but has also seen its narrative universe expanded across comics and novelizations, board games, and video games. Despite the fact that the ride lacks a coherent story, fans have demanded a greater narrative to the ride, causing tensions between Disney and its fans. Introducing the concepts of spatial poaching and retrospective transmedia, the chapter focuses on how producers and fans co-construct transmedia narratives through physical spaces, and over extended periods of time.


2022 ◽  
pp. 148-173
Author(s):  
Qiannan Li

In New Zealand, for non-Chinese speaker learners aged 5-12, the Chinese courses provided by the Confucius Institute are usually based on the premise of increasing interest, with the main teaching goal of improving students' oral communication skills and increasing their understanding of Chinese and Asian culture. Therefore, it is an effective way to improve the quality of Chinese teaching by fully considering the students' cultural background and combining modern teaching techniques with traditional teaching content. Guided by N.S. Prabhu's task-based language teaching methods, this chapter uses a case study method to explore how to use the mobile applications and other multimedia technologies to improve the teaching effect of Chinese Pinyin in a New Zealand elementary school.


Multilingua ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 505-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Noëlle Guillot

Abstract This article focuses on linguistic and cultural representation in AVT as a medium of intercultural literacy. It has two objectives: it puts to the test increasingly accepted assumptions about AVT modalities’ distinctive meaning potential and expressive capacity, with a case study of communicative practices in their representation, via AVT, in subtitles across Romance and Germanic languages. The second objective is to make a start on a neglected question to date, by considering, concurrently, the respective potential for representation of different types of languages, Indo-European in the first instance, in different pair configurations. The study applies to (Romance) French, Italian, Spanish and (Germanic) English and German and uses a cross-cultural pragmatics framework to explore representation, per se and comparatively across the languages represented in the main data, Lonnergan’s 2016 feature film Manchester by the Sea. Data is approached qualitatively from a target text end in the first instance and primarily, in a subset of scenes from across the film. Quantitative analysis is used complementarily for diagnostic purposes or as a complementary source of evidence, with initial focus on types of features identified in earlier studies as a locus of stylised representation in subtitling with evidence of distinctive pragmatic indexing (e.g. pronominal address, greetings, thanking). The study is a pilot study and is exploratory at this stage, but part of a broader endeavour to inform debates about, and build up the picture of, AVT as cross-cultural mediation and, ultimately, promote our understanding of films in translation’s societal impact.


2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 595-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Ward-Griffin

This article examines the relationship between opera on television and opera on the stage in America in the 1950s and 1960s. Using the NBC Opera (1949–64) as a case study, I trace both what television borrowed from the operatic stage and what television sought to bring to the stage in a relationship envisioned by producers as symbiotic. Focusing on the NBC's short-lived touring arm, which produced live performances of Madam Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro, and La traviata for communities across America in 1956–57, I draw upon archival evidence to show how these small-scale stage productions were recalibrated to suit a television-watching public. Instead of relying on the stylized presentation and grand gestures typical of major opera houses, the NBC touring performances blended intimate television aesthetics with Broadway typecasting and naturalistic direction. Looking beyond the NBC Opera, I also offer a new model for understanding multimedial transfer in opera, one in which the production style of early television opera did not simply respond to the exigencies of the screen, but rather sought to transform the stage into a more intimate—and supposedly more accessible—medium in the mid-twentieth century.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-498
Author(s):  
Justin Smith

This article charts the history of an experiment, conducted during the autumn and winter of 1986–7, in which Channel 4 trialled an on-screen visual warning symbol to accompany screenings of a series of international art-house films. The so-called ‘red triangle’ experiment, though short-lived, will be considered as a case study for exploring a number of related themes. Firstly, it demonstrates Channel 4's commitment during the 1980s to fulfilling its remit to experiment and innovate in programme form and content, in respect of its acquired feature film provision. Channel 4's acquisitions significantly enlarged the range of international classic and art-house cinema broadcast on British television. Secondly, it reflects contemporary tensions between the new broadcaster, its regulator the IBA, campaigners for stricter censorship of television and policy-makers. The mid-1980s was a period when progressive developments in UK film and television culture (from the rise of home video to the advent of Channel 4 itself) polarised opinions about freedom and regulation, which were greatly exacerbated by the press. Thirdly, it aims to shed light on the paradox that, while over thirty years of audience research has consistently revealed the desire on the part of television viewers for an on-screen ratings system, the UK is not among some forty countries that currently employ such devices on any systematic basis. In this way the history of a specific advisory experiment may be seen to have a bearing on current policy trends.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINA BAADE

AbstractIn November 1938 and January 1939, the BBC relayed two American Jam Sessions from New York to Britain. Regarded as historic by critics and producers, the live relays broke from BBC tradition in their presentation of improvised jazz and in their production as “informal parties.” Both broadcasts featured Alistair Cooke as announcer and “a galaxy of swing stars” (including Sidney Bechet, Teddy Wilson, and Tommy Dorsey) assembled by the New York bandleader Joe Marsala; however, British jazz enthusiasts responded to them very differently. Whereas the second session was widely praised, the first session inspired controversy, particularly after a leading critic deemed it a “washout.”The divergent reception demonstrated the challenges of maintaining the jam session's status as a paragon of authenticity as it underwent three key transitions during the late 1930s: the transformation from in- and inter-group activity to public event; the transmission from New York's jazz and swing cultures to Britain's enthusiast subculture; and the transmutation from live performance to live broadcast. This article examines the context, planning, content, and reception of the 1938/39 BBC jam sessions as a case study in how authenticity in jazz was rearticulated in public, mediated, and transnational spaces.


Author(s):  
Louise Douse

This chapter is centred on research on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow, which explores optimal experience from the context of positive psychology. It develops a theory of flow in dance improvisation which draws on the eudaimonic concept of wellbeing. Links are made between flow and the defining characteristics of eudaimonia such as personal expressiveness, self-realization, excellence, and relatedness. The chapter draws on case-study research which proposes a methodology that allows the researcher/spectator to engage with the dancer’s experience of flow. The research employs ‘reflexive embodied empathy’, involving hermeneutic reflection for understanding both the participant’s experience and the researcher’s role in constructing that interpretation. The chapter argues that flow enables the researcher/spectator to connect with the experience of the dancer, informing both their understanding of the dancer’s wellbeing and their own wellbeing in the moment of observation. Flow thus offers a perspective of wellbeing that enhances the spectator–dancer relationship.


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