Introduction

The chapter-length introduction situates the book’s subject matter within a broad interdisciplinary field, and specifically in relation to the theory of intermediality in theatre and performance, the burgeoning audiovisual studies, and the “material turn” in opera scholarship. Approaching opera as hypermedium draws attention to the continuity between operatic past and present, and between different media and art forms, old and new. Productions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle by Robert Lepage and La Fura dels Baus serve here as a starting point for consideration of opera’s inherently hypermedial aspects. Pieces by Philip Glass, Michel van der Aa, and others help contextualize the book’s central case studies, the operas by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and British filmmaker Peter Greenaway, which epitomize the ways these aspects are rethought today. To outline the book’s theoretical framework, the introduction revisits some classic nodes in the debates about presence and representation and about liveness and mediatization.

‘Reverse-Thinking’

Starting from Hayden White’s Metahistory, this chapter considers how what White called a ‘retroactive’ style of writing becomes naturalized in postmodernist aesthetics. The first section ranges widely over contemporary US fiction, and it also considers antipodean influences on the music of Philip Glass and John Cage, the films of Jean-Luc Godard and the video installations of Christian Marclay. The second section tracks this reverse-thinking through celebrated postmodern fabulists John Barth and Salman Rushdie, showing how their playful narratives address changing social conditions. The third section discusses the shift away from progressive sequence in the films of David Lynch and Michael Haneke, indicating how this relates to surrealism, psychoanalysis, and geographical displacement. The final section analyses contemporary Australian fiction in terms of its spatio-temporal recalibrations, exploring how the planetary turn common to the fiction of Tim Winton, Gail Jones, and Christos Tsiolkas has become characteristic of postmodernism more widely.

Theme and Performance in Symphony No 5 by Philip Glass

Of Philip Glass's twelve symphonies - perhaps the most popular minimalist composer after John Cage – it is the choral Fifth, entitled "Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya", composed in the years of full maturity (the first performance took place in 1994), that mostly impresses through its grand design, display of instruments and human voices, soloists and four choral ensembles may be considered a version of the theocratic scenario that projects the history of mankind in the order of the divine, characteristic of the premodern age. Glass's originality consists in the overlapping of several mythical structures - Swedish, biblical, Buddhist, Islamic, Sufi, etc. - in accordance with the holistic epistemology of the contemporary era. Despite the Buddhist references in the title, the narrative is modelled on the biblical archetype, from the genesis of the universe to the Last Judgment and it ends with the vision of a future humanity bonded in brotherhood, peace and compassion

Repetitive Minimalism in the Work of Philip Glass. Composition Techniques

The music which renders Philip Glass’ vision is based on repetition. Musical figures are structured according to the so-called additive method – undoubtedly the main technique determining the characteristics of his style. It consists of adding new elements to the basic melodic and/or rhythmic structure, resulting in an expanding musical discourse which is augmented or diminished and is applied more and more melodic and rhythmic constraints, depending on the intentions of the compositional project. There is also the loop technique, which becomes manifest by a series of added elements from electro acoustics and which is almost omnipresent as a basic minimalist technique.

Música y cine documental. Un diálogo entre Errol Morris y Philip Glass: The Thin Blue Line (1988)

The Thin Blue Line es una de las obras fundamentales de la filmografía de Errol Morris. En este documental se consigue desvelar la inocencia de Randall Adams, acusado por el asesinato de un agente de policía en 1976. Sin embargo, los estudios sobre este film no se han detenido en la consideración de la música compuesta por Philip Glass: ésta juega un papel determinante en la construcción de la inocencia de Adams, así como en el descubrimiento de la corrupción de la justicia estadounidense. De este modo, los reenactments utilizados ampliamente por el director a lo largo del documental dialogarían continuamente con la música de Glass, construyendo entre ambos –tanto en clave irónica, como a través de la repetición– dicha inocencia. Partiendo de estudios sobre el cine documental, como los publicados por Bill Nichols (2013, 2016) o Jonathan Kahana (2016), y aquellos sobre musicología y música en el cine documental, como el editado por Holly Rogers (2016) o Tristan Evans (2015), este artículo trata de establecer relaciones entre los procedimientos de Morris y Glass, quienes a través del dialogo entre reenactments y los presupuestos del minimalismo musical consiguen evidenciar la inocencia de Randall Adams.

Corvo Branco: construção e desconstrução de mitos.

O trabalho que nos propomos apresentar é a análise da ópera Corvo Branco com libreto de Luísa Costa Gomes, música de Philip Glass e encenação de Robert Wilson, estreada no teatro Camões por ocasião da Expo'98, cuja referência central são as viagens marítimas dos séculos XV e XVI, ainda que o tema central pretenda ser a descoberta. A obra configura não só a sobreabundância de informação, acontecimentos, imagens e lugares que caracteriza as sociedades contemporâneas, como sobretudo a reação que as próprias sociedades engendram para essa sobreabundância: o refúgio em universos simbólicos servindo de reconhecimento entre os seus membros e de confirmação de pertença ao grupo (Augé, 1992). Esse universo simbólico, parte da ideologia explícita ou implícita da sociedade em questão e assim da identidade nacional, é, no caso português, dominado pela importância do império passado, pela ideia de “encontro de culturas” harmonioso e pacífico, pela imagem do português simples, humilde e batalhador que percorre o mundo em busca de aventuras, não descurando, porém, o desejo de regressar à “ditosa pátria [sua] amada” (Gomes, 1998, p. 48). Como a obra desconstrói esses mitos será a nossa linha de análise.

A composição de imaginários assombrosos pelo sonoro único proposto nos filmes de animação de Fernando Cortizo

In the analysis of the work of an author, we can see his evolution and development, not only at a technical and stylistic level, but also in the themes that define his being, his having, and his art. Through The Doll Thief, The Promise, The Cat Groomer and The Apostle of Fernando Cortizo we will analyze various work contents, in order to perceive in what way the music illustrates an imaginary, and how the use the stopmotion technique produces a discourse and a visual narrative, that will be used also by the composers Josh Rouse, Carlos Fernandez and Philip Glass in the structure of a sonorous that shows itself the author.It is our intention to perceive how the musical work is raised in order to elucidate these contents in the filmic proposals. We will look for facts and arguments that allow us to say whether the musical work, and the various elements that constitute it, are redefined in order to integrate better into the filmic contents, or if, on the other hand, they remain the same. We want to see if music emphasizing the image and builds another level of meaning, an alternative way of experiencing reality that, when not informed, appears cruel. In this set of films, filmmaker and other authors, draw a new look on human experience, allowing us a different reading of what is life, death, cruelty, sinister, ghostly. We want to understand how the different discursive plans compete there to clarify the works.

Ein(Stein) on the Beach (in Egypt): ‘Syncopated Time’ and the Formation of a ‘Continuous Present’ in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten

In her 1935 lecture Plays, Gertrude Stein identifies a problem at the heart of the theatrical experience, that “your emotion concerning [the] play is always either behind or ahead of the play at which you are looking and to which you are listening” (Stein 58), creating an emotive and cognitive asynchronicity between the audience and the work, which she terms “syncopated time” (Stein 58). At the heart of this disconnect is her observation that “plays are either read or heard or seen” (Stein 59); the audience’s difficulty navigating this trialectic relationship is largely responsible for their desyncing from the emotional time-sense of the work. As the theatrical medium involving perhaps the most complex interplay of reading, hearing, and seeing, opera is an excellent subject for the application of Stein’s theories. This paper applies Stein’s questions of cognitive perception and emotional time to Akhnaten, Philip Glass’ third opera (which recently received its Metropolitan Opera premiere), in order to explore how the work navigates the problems which Stein identifies. This paper will argue that Glass’ iterative and ‘minimalist’ compositional style creates a synthesis of reading, hearing, and seeing to create a ‘continuous present,’ allowing the audience to remain in emotive and cognitive synchronicity with the work, and thus preventing them from falling into ‘syncopated time.’ In this way, contemporary opera offers novel approaches to the performative relationship between a work and its audience. Works Cited Stein, Gertrude. “Plays.” Writings and Lectures 1911-1945, edited by Patricia Meyerowitz, Peter Owen, 1967, pp. 58-81.