An Exploration of the Intersection Between Opera and
Mixed-Media Installations as Revealed in Two Case Studies
A thesis submitted for the Arts and Culture: Musicology Master’s
University of Amsterdam
ABSTRACT
The intention of this thesis is to explore how the relationship between opera and mixed-media installations might reasonably be conceived of in the contemporary cultural climate. My motivation for writing this thesis stems from an article written by musicologist Alexandra Wilson (2007). Wilson submits that an uneasy relationship has formed between opera and other forms of “high” art (2007, 269). By looking at the relevance of opera as revealed in two mixed-media installations, I explore how Opera for a Small Room (2005) and Lucid Possession (2009-present) are both transformed by and drawn to opera in multifarious ways. Contributing to existing theories of art, opera and media the significance of this thesis is twofold. Firstly, it challenges the notion put forward by Wilson that the relationship between opera and other forms of “high” art is uneasy. Secondly, in tandem with this, it shows the drawbacks of categorising arts in this way, as historical wholes. For what these “operatic” mixed-media installations reveal is that opera is the attraction, not the opposition.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...1
Opera: “Dead” or “Outdated?”...1
Research Question...2
An “Uneasy” Relationship?...3
Opera and Elitism...6
Opera and Postmodernism (Hybridity and Exclusivity) ...8
Problematic Distinctions versus “Operatic” Significance ...10
Summary and Research Concerns ...14
CHAPTER I...15
Terminology and Method...15
“Actual” Opera, Opera as an “Idea,” and the “Operatic” ...15
Locating the “Operatic” in Other Media ...17
Internal versus External Perspectives on Opera ...22
Opera and Mixed Media Installations as “Live” Art Forms ...24
Excess and Extravagance ...26
The Case Studies...27
CHAPTER II ...29
Opera for a Small Room...29
Background ...29
Narrative and Constitution...31
Killing Time versus Opera for a Small Room...32
Challenging Conceptions...33
An Opera[tic] in the Making ...36
Concluding Remarks ...41 CHAPTER III...43 Lucid Possession ...43 Background ...43 Constitution...44 Narrative...46
The “Operatic Voice”...49
Opera’s Legacy on the Move...52
Concluding Remarks ...56
CONCLUSION...57
INTRODUCTION
Opera: “Dead” or “Outdated?”
In an interview for Deutsche Welle in 2014, Peter Gelb, Manager of the Metropolitan Opera declared: ‘grand opera is in itself a kind of a dinosaur art form’ (Gelb 2014). A reference to operas characterised by large casts, big orchestras, expensive set designs and dramatic and complex plots, Gelb directly addressed the concerns shared by many of the “great” opera houses world-wide. The argument from Gelb was that the Met was ‘facing extinction’ because opera—as currently performed—is unfavourable among much-needed new audiences (ibid). Gelb followed by stating: ‘that’s why when I came to the Met I was determined to make opera more accessible, to improve the quality of opera in this country’ (ibid). His comments came directly after proposed wage cuts at the Met. If the art form was to be financially and culturally viable, it needed scaling down and shaking-up. Writing in 2012, Ivan Hewett, classical music critic for The Telegraph, similarly addressed such concerns: everything about [opera]—above all the fact the characters sing when they really ought to be speaking—offends against our predominantly realist aesthetic … [also] it’s fabulously expensive, which is a problem in our democratic age’ (Hewett 2012).
Neither statement discloses new concerns. Throughout history, opera’s legitimacy as an art form has often been called into question. Addressing this, Herbert Lindenberger states: over ‘the four centuries in which it has flourished, [it] has characteristically elicited the word absurd from those who sought to disparage it’ (1984, 198). Commenting further, he argues that both the ‘scenic effects’ of opera and the ‘musical and dramatic conventions governing operatic discourse’ have contributed to the assumption that it is a farcical cultural practice (ibid, 199): ‘a form that, through the very extravagance with which it presents itself to its audience, magnifies the supposedly dangerous qualities of art many times over’ (ibid, 198).
As addressed by Hewett above, it is this disparagement that continues to taint operatic verisimilitude. Opera is arguably difficult to believe in, and therefore relate to as an audience member.
In addition to this dubiety, there is the public perception of opera as an elitist, highbrow form of entertainment. Nicholas Till suggests that the historical relationship between opera and the elite clubs of Europe and America, combined with the criticisms levelled at its absurdity, have left the art form a vulnerable cultural practice (2012, 313): ‘its supporters are defensive, not only because of opera’s class associations but because exotic and irrational entertainment that it is, is such a wobbly pinnacle upon which to rest the values of high art’ (ibid).
And yet, “opera” endures. Perhaps, as Roger W. Oliver suggests:
Since the advent of realism in theatre at the end of the nineteenth century and with the development of those media of reality par excellence, film and television, there is more of a need than ever for a larger-than-life form that takes us both within and outside ourselves rather than reflecting back what we see on a regular basis (1992, 37).
Research Question
The penultimate point put forward by Till concerning the notion of “high” art, or what constitutes the “values of high” art, coupled with manifold conceptions of opera, are central to this thesis. Focusing on a peripheral area of study, that of the relationship between opera and mixed-media installations this thesis’s main concern is to uncover how such a relationship might reasonably be conceived of. Simply put: considering the criticisms that have been levelled at opera, what might be the attraction of opera to mixed-media installations in the
contemporary cultural climate? The complexities of addressing such a topic are immediate. Both art forms are arguably “high” in status, but traditionally inculcate different values. Their differences in terms of historical trajectory and cultural and social reception lead to the presupposition that they are disparate art forms belonging to two conflicting artistic spheres. For reasons that will be made clear in the following paragraphs, this makes it difficult to separate the institutionalisation, or rather the “socialisation” of each art form, from the art itself. I purport that it is necessary to make such distinctions in order establish how opera as an art —aside from its proclaimed fate as a dying institution (Battle of Ideas 2015)—is finding a “home” in these mixed-media installations and as such, is “living on” in unconventional ways.
An “Uneasy” Relationship?
My motivation for writing this thesis stems from an article written by musicologist Alexandra Wilson (2007). In “Killing time: Contemporary representations of opera in British culture,” Wilson proposes that despite the concerns of those such as Peter Gelb and Ivan Hewett, popular culture is seemingly embracing opera in the twenty-first century. Analysing reality television series Popstar to Operastar and Operatunity and other popular media through which opera is disseminated such as the radio and cinema, Wilson suggests that to some extent it appears as though opera has regained the entertainment status it periodically enjoyed in the nineteenth century (through these broadcasts the public are reminded of its fun factor and leisurely value). Instead, Wilson submits that the “uneasy” relationship is the one that has formed between opera and other forms of “high” art (2007, 269).
In particular, the article examines the work of the mixed-media artist Sam Taylor-Johnson (née Taylor-Wood) and her video installation Killing Time (1994). Here, a disjunction is presented between the pedestrianism of everyday life and the impassioned
music of Strauss’s Elektra (Taylor 2003). A dichotomy is revealed where “high” and “low” culture collide in a juxtaposition of visual (low) and aural (high). During the installation, four seemingly average people—representing the visual—lip-synch intermittently to the words of Elektra. Whilst eating, smoking, drinking cups of tea, scratching their heads and generally procrastinating in unexceptional home settings, the subjects seem unperturbed by the fact that Elektra is an opera filled with horror and tragedy. The narrative, taken from Greek mythology, revolves around the story of Elektra, who with her brother Orestes and her sister Chrysothemis, plot to revenge their step-father and mother for the murder of their father
(ibid). The contrast between a woman sitting bored on the sofa rubbing her eyes, whilst lip syncing the words of “Nun muß es hier von uns geschehn” (It is for us to act now)—a moment where Elektra rallies her terrified sister to help in the avengement of their father—is undeniably stark.1
Figure I. A photograph of Killing Time installed at Tate Britain in 2003. Photo sourced from the Tate (2006).
1It is possible to watch clips of Killing Time via Sam Taylor-Johnson’s website. The clip I am referring to here is “Clip 3. Killing Time (Electra Fixed), 1994.” http://samtaylorjohnson.com/moving-image/art/killing-time-1994 (Accessed July 14 2016).
Commenting, Wilson writes that Taylor-Johnson’s installation can be read two-fold: as a mockery of opera’s irrelevance, or as an allegory whereby the apparently bored subjects of the installation voice their aspirations through the emotive operatic music (2007, 262). The former reading relates to the disinterested manner in which the subjects relate to the music, the latter perceives opera as symbolic of the emotions and desires that bubble under the surface of mundane, everyday life. Wilson indicates that opera is not the only music that has the ability to rouse the emotions in this way. The choice of opera is deliberate on Taylor-Johnson’s part, a comment on its “high” art status, its perceived ability to elevate beyond the stratosphere of the ordinary. From either perspective, it is argued by Wilson that Taylor-Johnson’s installation is critical of opera’s place in everyday life. On the one hand it is deemed irrelevant, on the other it is symbolic of the unattainable (ibid).
Addressing the irony of postmodernist art, Wilson states: ‘artists such as Taylor-Johnson adopt a consciously anti-intellectual stance, yet are themselves part of a world of “high” culture, one which is arguably as removed from everyday concerns as opera is often claimed to be’ (2007, 269). As such, she suggests that Taylor-Johnson distracts attention away from the contradictions within her own post-modernist “art world” by drawing attention to the absurdity of opera and the irrelevance of the art-form in everyday life situations (not a new notion as already mentioned). By “art world” I refer in this instance to Howard Becker’s denotation: ‘a network of people whose cooperative activity, organised via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produces the kind of art works that art world is noted for’ (1982, x). In personifying opera as the “dinosaur” art-form, Taylor-Johnson’s Killing Time—ostensibly “high” art in itself—presents this type of postmodern, mediatised installation as more apposite to contemporary cultural life than going to watch an opera at the Met. In doing so, she attempts to eschew the critique that her art form too
depends upon the ‘powerful reaffirmation of problematic and arguable anachronistic cultural categories’ (Wilson 2007, 270).
According to Wilson, it is under these circumstances that Killing Time can be viewed as representative of the current relationship between opera and other forms of “high” art. The two are irreconcilable because the current institutionalisation and hierarchical predisposition of opera, threatens the more egalitarian sentiments of other forms of “high” art (despite the fact that they too rely on the support from “elite” institutions). It is here, that the “high” art referred to in this thesis becomes contextualised. For it is not “fine” art that concerns me—the music, the painting, the sculpture, the building, the acting, the singing—but art that, like opera, unites if not “all” the arts, at least many of them (Lindenberger 1998, 108). It is the postmodern interdisciplinary art, that because of its “impure,” cumulative nature is deemed as tainted and unprincipled as opera was considered to be at its genesis (and still is in the minds of classical purists). This arguably makes the two easily comparable, but it is this history of opera that is often overlooked by its critics and is important to acknowledge when discussing its relationship to other forms of art (ibid, 107). After all, in spite of current scepticism, opera has not always been granted its “high” art status.
Opera and Elitism
Opera as the large transnational corporation that we might associate it with today, sprung out of commercial Venice in 1637. Courtly opera that came before this was not a popular form of entertainment. It endorsed courtly morals and glorified the ruler. It was a scholarly invention that sought to revive ancient Greek drama. In contrast to this, commercial opera, first presented to the public during the carnival period of that year, diminished the hierarchical features of the courtly world and publicised egalitarian sentiment for a short time. It became primarily an entertainment vehicle in which vocal prowess could be appreciated. A theatrical
phenomenon began through musical means in which the elite were satirised for the benefit of the commercial market: a lucrative, popular form of entertainment.
Since this conception, opera has continued to traverse the boundaries of high and low, a reflection one could say of its two births, the “courtly” and the “commercial.” Considering opera’s oscillating status, Lindenberger explains that those intent on degrading opera have historically critiqued the art form for ‘…its refusal to honour classical virtues as unity and verisimilitude, its entanglement in a world of commerce, and, often in connection with the last-named reason, its willingness to compromise itself [musically or dramatically] for the sake of immediate effect’ (ibid, 108). Some, if not all of these criticisms are still levelled at the art form today. Nevertheless, the perception of opera as a predominantly upper-class pastime—and hence its cultural and social ranking as a “high” art form particularly in the United States and Britain—was not a cemented perception until the early twentieth century.
Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker (2012) link this change in perception to forms of technological advancement, namely that of the cinema. As a more accessible and inexpensive form of entertainment the cinema became a more attainable cultural activity and swarmed the popular market. It is under these circumstances that opera became an increasingly expensive night out. As the provincial theatres closed for lack of funding, those that remained, such as Covent Garden in London or the Metropolitan Opera in New York, required private financial backing to remain afloat. This pushed out the diverse audiences that had been enjoying opera previously and consolidated opera as an elite cultural practice. Subsequently, it was ‘distanced from its earlier “entertainment function” and … assigned “redemptive” powers, [it] was simultaneously constructed as something that could only be understood and appreciated by those in possession of money and a high level of education’ (Wilson 2007, 256). Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, Till argues that those keen to defend opera as a “high” art—against critics that saw its “irrationality” as not worthy of such a status—were quick to
claim that educative and social capital were necessary traits in order to appreciate and understand opera (2012, 313). As such, opera and importantly the opera house became a marker of elite activity. Categories of “high” and “low” culture—and the audiences that might enjoy such forms of culture—became more distinct from one another.
The consequences of this history are still acute in the way that opera is received today. Wilson states: ‘the current perception … of opera as “elitist” would seem to stem in part from the ways in which opera has, over the last century, been co-opted by particular groups who have sought to exploit it as a form of social ritual and as part of a quest for cultural authority’ (2007, 257). This, as already mentioned, contributes to the case from critics that opera is essentially removed from the everyday practices of social life and therefore holds little cultural relevancy.
Opera and Postmodernism (Hybridity and Exclusivity)
Looked at this way, opera seemingly goes against the grain of current postmodernist sensibilities. Despite the fact that opera as an art form sets a precedent for the unification of interdependent arts—a prominent feature of postmodernist art that sees the mixing of different artistic styles and media as paramount—it is the institutionalisation of opera that seems to offend most critics.
For instance, in analysing the positioning of opera houses in many of the European cities, Till notes that their geographical location indicates their traditional social function. Often occupying spaces close to parliamentary buildings or monarchical residences, opera’s long standing relationship with the state and other elite circles is evident. He writes:
In modern states the location of opera continues to serve as an important sign of the relationship between the state and official culture, which is often represented
by opera, thereupon coming into contact with opera – an art-form traditionally situated within geographically “well-to-do locations” – its association with elitism is undisguised (2012, 70).
As such, regardless of opera’s interdisciplinary and unifying nature, its status as highbrow— which is often used as a metaphor for the “exclusionary”—culminates in a perception of opera as an art form that distances itself from the “low,” instead mixing the “high” and the “high” (classical music, operatic singing in a foreign language, and “traditional,” unmediatised spectacle within the gilt-edged gates of the opera house). While installations like Taylor-Johnson’s are also regarded as highbrow because of the kinds of intellectual elitism they encourage, their use of “low” culture to critique the “high” flaunts a type of hybridity that can be viewed as showing a greater social and self-awareness, despite the contradictions present. Notwithstanding the fact that various strands of opera draw on popular culture, folk songs and in more recent times various forms of “popular” media, it is how opera is imagined, or rather what the art form symbolises which is significant for the purposes of this thesis. This is because when artists choose to incorporate opera into their art, or infer that their art is characteristically “operatic” they do so in full awareness of opera as emblematic of certain social and cultural practices with implicit links to “high” culture. Ironically, despite this, opera is still left open to castigation from purist critics, who would arguably voice the same concerns regarding installations like Killing Time. There is something about the blending of the arts, whether that be “high” and “low” or “high” and “high” that makes formalists fear that something essential from the “single” art drawn from is being lost.
It is in this way that hybridity, in the interdisciplinary sense, conjures up a sense of impurity, or a sense of confusion, the art form being neither here or nor there. In writing about this particular conception of opera, Lydia Goehr states that in order ‘to speak of opera as
“hybrid” in a non-accusatory way might be to celebrate the fact that opera is an art of mixed media, or less statically, a dynamic art and example par excellence of multi-, trans-, or intermediality’ (2014, 102). It is in this way that opera could arguably be seen as the “forefather” of other forms of mixed media (cinema, musical theatre and installation art being three such forms). However, there is a sense in this contemporary period that the lines of cultural distinction, which insinuate hierarchy, should be more blurred than they have been in previous eras: that art should at some level be open to participation. This does not bode well for an art form that while “organically” hybrid, historically endorses such a unique skill – the voice. Wilson writes: ‘there is no escaping the fact that … most opera from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries have demanded the skills of highly trained specialist performers’ (2007, 265). As such, Wilson notes there is something of the ‘cult of the near-superhuman’ that emanates from the opera singer, the aristocratic, the untouchable (ibid, 263). Aside from the aforementioned “institutionalisation of opera,” this too arguably contributes to the perception of opera an art exclusive art form.
Problematic Distinctions versus “Operatic” Significance
Briefly returning to Wilson’s claim that the relationship between opera and other forms of “high” art is “uneasy.” It becomes apparent that the “high” art under discussion in her article relates to those arts whose framework is arguably as removed from the practices of everyday life as opera’s is, whose constitution as an interdisciplinary mixed-media is arguably similar to opera’s, but whose postmodern aesthetic, despite the two previous similarities, makes for a tense, “uneasy” relationship. Ultimately in Wilson’s eyes, the relationship between opera and other forms of “high” art (Taylor-Johnson’s installation) is strained because it is difficult—as a “Taylor-Johnson”—to measure whether Killing Time is in fact any more profound or
culturally relevant than a production of Elektra performed in an opera house, despite the fact that Killing Time is based on this implication.
While I am inclined to agree with Wilson in this specific context—the relationship between opera, its supporting institution and the installation Killing Time is “uneasy”—as stated in the beginning paragraphs, this thesis intends to investigate the relationship between opera and mixed-media installations (other forms of “high” art) further. My motivation stems from Wilson’s proposal, but it needs investigating in similar instances, or indeed in relation to Killing Time, to be convincing. This, in the main, is because proposing that the relationship between two highly heterogeneous art forms is “uneasy” is not only vague, but also indeterminate. One of the aims of this thesis, is to expand on this and show the drawbacks of categorising art forms as “historical wholes.” Opera is not and has never been a homogeneous art form, as is the same with other forms of “high” art. Therefore, to treat either as such, as I argue Wilson does, essentialises the idea that there are fixed and conflicting characteristics in each “genre,” without accounting for the heterogeneity in both and the subsequent overlap.
Lindenberger suggests that ‘it may well be … that the only factor authorising the word “opera” to name works from the 1600 to the present is the persistence of that allied institution called the opera house, within which these works are performed’ (1998, 6). Moreover, he states: ‘throughout its history, opera has seen shifts in its relationships, to the various spheres within which it participates – aesthetic, commercial, and sometimes both at once’ (ibid, 110). Steve Dixon has argued, moreover, that aesthetic confusion and diversity among the arts has been heightened by a plethora of new media available to artists in the latter half of the twentieth century, specifically with the advent of the computer and the Internet (2015, 3). This has ‘led to a distinct blurring of what we formerly termed, for example, communication, scriptwriting, acting, visual art, science, design, theatre, video and performance art. Finite distinctions apply less and less’ (ibid).
The effects of technological advancement of course apply to some opera productions as well. For while many opera productions, as witnessed in the opera house, do not engage with many of these innovations in substantial ways, some are experimenting with technology in attempts to revolutionise and challenge the institutionalisation of opera. The critically acclaimed wireless opera Invisible Cities (2013) may serve as an example. In this one-act opera, performed in Union Station, Los Angeles all the singers and instrumentalists are miked in order to transmit the narrative to audience members wearing wireless headphones. Encouraged to amble around the station, the audience can hear the entire cast and ensemble from whatever point they choose to stand. No matter which section of the opera they choose to follow, they can hear all the soloists also meandering around the station.2 The use of this
technology inevitably challenges the traditional means of communication and the idea of opera having its own “space,” the stage. As such, the ‘spatial and sociocultural barriers of conventional performances spaces for opera’ are brought into question (Till 2012, 88). In addition to experimental productions such as Invisible Cities, watching opera has also been revolutionised by the cinema. The development of film has made it possible to watch staged opera from the comfort of your living room. Readily available over the internet and on DVD, it is no longer necessary to visit the opera house in order to engage with the art form. Here, opera and cinema become intertwined with opera being broadcast through the means of film: where does opera begin and film end under these circumstances?
However, the primary problematic of Wilson’s proposal can be shown by the following. When speaking to Pip Laurenson, Conservation Researcher at the Tate Museum where the installation was exhibited in 2003, Taylor-Johnson stated: ‘I do feel like the piece is operatic’ (Laurenson 2006). While this may have been a passing comment from Taylor-Johnson, the statement arguably makes Wilson’s claim somewhat paradoxical. On the one
2It is possible to watch the trailer of Invisible Cities via Vimeo. Please see link below: https://vimeo.com/89632194 (Accessed August 16 2016).
hand, Taylor-Johnson is critiquing opera’s cultural relevance as an institution—Wilson’s main interest—but, on the other, there is something of the “operatic” that appeals to Taylor-Johnson, something Wilson’s analysis seems to overlook.
It is here that I would like to suggest that Taylor-Johnson’s referral to the “operatic” raises a number of questions relating to the purpose or value of ‘systematising the arts’ in the way that Wilson purports: opera in one category, other forms of “high” art in another (Goehr 2014, 102). Indeed, the fact that Taylor-Johnson is both drawing on opera as an art and dismissing opera as an institution, could be considered part of opera’s “uneasy” relationship to other forms of “high” art in the specific context of Killing Time. However, Killing Time is also an example of the way in which “The Arts”—and perhaps more so with the introduction of digital technologies in the latter half of the twentieth century—‘have never really ceased moving in and out of each other’s spaces’ (ibid). With regard to the issue of categorising art forms in this way, Goehr states:
How systematisation has prevented mobility or encouraged a resistance through mobility has always been an urgent question … [but] one must also take care, when referring to the contest of the arts […] to avoid suggesting that the many contests involved therein have always been fought on the same terms or with the same tools (ibid).
In suggesting that opera and other forms of “high” art share an “uneasy” relationship, Wilson implies just this: that the apparent contest between opera and other forms of “high” art as shown in one mixed-media installation is representative of other relationships therein. It proposes that opera and other forms of “high” art should be considered categorically distinct from one another. However, I do not wish to purport that opera does not have any
characteristics, or have the ability to influence other art-forms in a way that painting, or sculpture could not. In the eyes and ears of some, “grand” opera may well be on the brink of death, but the “operatic,” as implied by Taylor-Johnson’s comment, still lives on.
Summary and Research Concerns
Considering the above, I am therefore motivated to separate art from institution and determine in what ways the relationship between opera and other forms of “high” art is not “uneasy,” but intertwined. I do not intend to essentialise opera’s characteristics, rather I aspire to adhere to a postmodern position that ‘sees arts and music as subjects whose value and identity can be assumed and interpreted freely since they are not fixed, essential or permanent’ (Hall 1996, 598). “Operatic” is therefore open to interpretation in the case studies analysed below, although, at one level or another this trait is agreed upon by author, audience, critic or curator alike. To reiterate: contributing to existing theories of art, opera and media, I intend to analyse the particular relevance of opera, specifically as revealed in two additional mixed-media installations. I choose mixed-media installations specifically so as to continue the discussion started by Wilson. The thesis’s primary concern therefore, is to investigate what kinds of relationships opera and these mixed-media installations share. Driving my research are three main questions:
1. How do the works analysed embrace the “operatic”?
2. In what way is opera seen to be “living on” outside the confines of the opera house? 3. How are they inspired by opera?
Subsequently, this thesis challenges the assumption—suggested in Taylor-Johnson’s installation—that opera is an isolated art form that is irrelevant in the twenty-first century.
The two case studies I draw from are titled Opera for a Small Room (2005) and Lucid Possession (2009-present). I will detail my approach in Chapter I.
CHAPTER I Terminology and Method
“Actual” Opera, Opera as an “Idea,” and the “Operatic”
Before moving further, it is important to distinguish between what I term “actual” opera, opera as an “idea” (an imagined thing) and the “operatic.” For in looking at the relationship between opera and these mixed-media installations it becomes apparent that the references to opera or the ways in which opera is used differs greatly.
Taking the voice to demonstrate this conundrum. It is true, as Wilson purports, that “actual” opera—for the sake of continuity taking a production of Elektra as an example— demands the skill of highly-trained opera singers. Opera connoisseurs will be able to hear the trained from the untrained voice. The controversy over “popera” (operatic-pop) star Katherine Jenkins demonstrates this well. Despite her successes and her popularity worldwide, the singer sparks outrage from inside the opera industry itself. For the most part, this outrage is a result of the media labelling her as an opera singer and her willingness to accept this label. Classic critiques are as follows: ‘her voice sounds too stretched and too small: her vibrato strains over each phrase, and she hasn’t got the power or technique’ (Service 2008). Or rather, ‘…is she a singer? Yes. Is she an opera singer? Hardly. Yes, she can haul out an aria (albeit in a much different key than the original), – but, again, that doesn’t make her an opera singer’ (Newman 2012).
“Popera” artists like Jenkins combine an “operatic” approach to singing with popular music or “popped” up opera arias. In a YouTube video posted in 2013 called “Katherine Jenkins versus Opera Singers,” Jenkins is pitted against renowned opera singers Maria Callas, Cecilia Bartolli and Joyce DiDonato in a “sing-off” of Rossini’s ‘una voce poco fa’ from The Barber of Seville.3 What the video shows is Jenkins using a microphone, slowing the tempo of
the piece and making the phrases legato where traditionally they have been sung staccato. She also struggles to reach the high notes while Callas, Bartolli and DiDonato seem to achieve the notes effortlessly with no technological enhancement or slowing of the tempo. It is for these reasons that she is branded un-skilled by her critics. This is because her “popped up” performances are deemed not comparable with the performances of the singers listed above (who display the “super-human” skill of an opera singer without amplification).
Interestingly, Jenkins herself has never actually claimed to be an opera singer despite her public affiliation with the art form (BBC News 2008). This is noteworthy because it is telling of how “people” come to perceive what opera is, how they are encouraged to imagine it. The way she is marketed to the public and her background in opera—she was trained at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London—means that whether she is an “actual” opera singer or not, does not change the fact that the “uninitiated” will associate Katherine Jenkins’ sound with opera when they hear her sing. This association occurs because she sings in an “operatic” manner i.e. she sings in ways of, related to, or typical of opera. Not the art form in “actual” terms, not “actual” opera, but rather like Gelb (2014) used “grand opera” to generalise those lavishly produced, large and overly complicated operas that have come to signify opera in public life, I mean generically “operatic” i.e. recognisably emblematic of opera as a style, inspired by this “idea” of opera.
Returning to Taylor-Johnson’s reference to the “operatic.” In Killing Time, we see that the “operatic” and this “idea” of opera are somewhat linked. “Operatic” in this instance is not a reference to a specific trait such as the “voice” as purported in the discussion of Jenkins’ singing style, “operatic” here is a reference to a feeling on entering the darkened space where the installation is exhibited: the “drama” of being transported from the light of day to the contrasting dark room (Laurenson 2006). Of course many may not describe this as being a
recognisably “operatic” experience, but it does draw attention to the fact that “operatic” is often used as a synonym for the “dramatic” with an added dimension. Considering Taylor-Johnson’s transparent critique of “actual” opera in her installation, to then call the piece “operatic” is interesting. It suggests that regardless of opera’s negative connotations, “operatic” is something worth striving for: something more than just a style, but exceedingly dramatic, elevatory, transporting, “other”.
Locating the “Operatic” in Other Media
Considering the above, it is important to state before continuing that I draw on various approaches and definitions of opera (limited as they may be) in order to determine in what capacity the works analysed are, or can be seen to be, attracted to opera. One particularly valuable approach, specifically in relation to my first question—how do the works analysed embrace the “operatic”?—is taken from Michal Grover-Friedlander’s book Vocal Apparitions: The Attraction of Cinema to Opera (2005). Here, Grover-Friedlander sets out to uncover film’s seeming attraction to opera in specific case studies where the relationship between cinema and opera has become intertwined at varying levels. Focusing on opera as a specific medium rather than a genre, Grover-Friedlander endeavours to uncover the power that the medium of opera has over the medium of film: ‘my emphasis is on what specifically occurs when what is aesthetically essential about one medium is transposed into the aesthetic field of the other’ (2005, 1). Arguing that the voice is “aesthetically essential” to the operatic medium, she outlines how an array of films attempt to draw from and visualise the “operatic voice.” The films in question range from the silent film The Phantom of the Opera (1925), to The Marx Brothers’ film A Night at the Opera (1935), the filmed operas of Zeffirelli’s Otello (1986) and Friedrich’s Falstaff (1979), both taken from the original Verdi operas, to Fellini’s
E la nave va (1983) that centres around the imagery of the death of a diva, the death of her voice, and the subsequent death of opera.
The analyses of the films ask the reader to think in advanced terms as to what “operatic” might mean. For instance, how is it possible for a silent film such as Rupert Julian’s The Phantom of the Opera, to successfully encapsulate the “operatic,” when the sound of the voice, an “aesthetically essential” part of opera, is missing (2005, 1)? Grover-Friedlander answers that this happens because Julian, the Director, ‘attempts at all costs to express the conditions of voice in opera by way of the cinematic image. The film is haunted by the “operatic voice” and makes its singing audible by revealing this voice’s power to take over the images of cinema.’ (ibid, 9). It is in this way that the films in question are transformed by opera. They may not inculcate an immediate sense of the “operatic” (the voice and speech through song), but on closer inspection provide visual imagery of the voice that she argues ‘paradoxically … at times can be more operatic than opera itself’ (ibid, 1).
Reviewing Grover-Friedlander’s book, Laura Basini (2006) argues that attempting to define the “aesthetic essentials” of a medium such as opera presents problems. She purports that the “operatic voice”, is not a historically homogenous entity, for instance, there are types of voices, which are themselves influenced by the cultural preferences of the time (2006, 684). Basini contends that Grover-Friedlander is in danger of essentialising the underlying, foundational principles of opera and therefore what counts as “operatic.” She argues that this is limiting because the ‘model seems to ignore the specificities that have made opera an enduringly powerful art form – indeed, a whole series of changing art forms cultivated in many countries for many purposes (ibid, 684).
While I am inclined to agree with Basini that essentialising what is inherent to opera’s aesthetic is restrictive with regard to discussions that attempt to define “actual” opera, I question whether Grover-Friedlander’s interpretation of what is an “aesthetically essential”
part of opera is really problematic in the context of uncovering what cinema’s attraction to opera might be (the “operatic”). What is useful about Grover-Friedlander’s analysis is the fact that cinema—as a more “recent” art-form—is attracted to opera and has the capacity, or perhaps willingness, to keep opera living on through a different medium: there is an explicit relationship there. In Grover-Friedlander’s book, opera has transformed the films in question because the films have an attraction to what they consider to be powerful or compelling about the “operatic voice” specifically. Whether that be the prima donna’s voice in The Phantom of the Opera, or the voice of Edmea Tetua in E la nave va, is neither here nor there. Rather, the significance is twofold: firstly, both voices visualised here are agreeably “operatic” even though stylistically different and secondly, the films in questions are compelled to visualise such “operatic voices” in the first place. Resultantly, the films become “operatic” in themselves through their attempts to visualise what they consider to be this “essential” part of opera. Significantly here, the attraction of opera to cinema occurs whether or not the voice, as an “aesthetic essential" within opera, is something that can be agreed upon by either author.
In this way Grover-Friedlander directly addresses the question posed by Oliver: ‘is there some mystique to opera, some special quality that is the source of its appeal?’ (1992, 33). For Grover-Friedlander, as mentioned above, it is the “operatic voice” specifically, that is the source of opera’s appeal. From her perspective, when one hears the “operatic voice,” the sound evokes feelings of immortality within the listener, reminding us that death is imminent. This, according to Grover-Friedlander, is because the “operatic voice”—singing throughout all the operas of the centuries (including the twenty-first)—derives itself from the “Italian notion of song” (2005, 3). This notion is not a reference to a singing style, but a reference to a state in ‘which one is always listening in anticipation of, or listening toward, a place where one knows beautiful singing will take place … [A] kind of ecstatic listening, [which] specifically acknowledges operatic singing as an activity bordering on the superhuman’ (ibid).
This recognition of the “superhuman” skill of an opera singer—as mentioned in the “Introduction”—is not used in Grover-Friedlander’s analysis as a metaphor for the perceived exclusive and elitist nature of opera (as is in Wilson’s analysis), but is used to summon an analogy between the “operatic voice” and death. This, she suggests, is because the kind of anticipative listening played out when listening to operatic song ‘brings with it a simultaneous consciousness of mortality. Moments of beautiful singing are always already being mourned, since one knows that they will have gone by at the very moment they appear … that death is immanent in the operatic voice’ (ibid, 4). It is in this way that the “operatic voice” has power over the listener, the fear that these beautiful moments will pass and be lost forever. In making the analogy between “operatic voice” and death a visual phenomenon, the films analysed by Grover-Friedlander encourage, what I might term, a kind of “anticipative seeing” or “ecstatic visualising.” Here, the viewer fears the loss of the beauty of sight and are encouraged to keep watching. Not only is the “operatic voice” stylistically attractive, but also technically so.
Whether or not one is convinced by the abstract nature of Grover-Friedlander’s analysis is open to interpretation. However, what I am encouraged by, is her suggestion that there is something innately appealing about opera specifically that means a relationship between opera and cinema can be reasonably conceived of in ways that are not just cinema parodying opera: movies can become conceivably “operatic.” Therefore, in analysing the mixed-media installations in Chapter’s II and III, the first line of questioning, stems from this idea. How, by utilising the “operatic voice,” do they become conceivably “operatic”? In answering this question, I take into account Basini’s criticism of Grover-Friedlander, recognising that such a “voice” comes in many different styles and forms. I therefore do not attempt to define “the” operatic voice in each case study, merely show how the types of “voice” used, contribute to a sense that the work is an “operatic” piece.
Concerning a tangential topic—the transition of “actual” opera from the opera house to the screen—Peter Conrad states that the interesting thing about operas that have been made into films for the purposes of the cinema is that ‘film is able to quit the opera house altogether, and to open up new meaning within works which are limited by the stage’ (1987, 266). While the mixed-media installations analysed do not recreate established works in this sense, the notion that in detaching opera from the traditional space of the opera house in turn gives opera autonomy as an art, is an interesting starting point to begin my second line of inquiry. In what way do these works keep opera “living on” outside the confines of the opera house? I do not mean in the sense Conrad is referring too (“actual” opera from stage to screen), or by way of the attempt Invisible Cities makes (“actual” opera in a train station). Here, I intend to uncover how opera—either in “actual” terms or in the “imagined” sense—is mobilised. Which parts of opera’s legacy are drawn from and used in their new found home?
Apart from Grover Friedlander’s focus on the “voice”, I will also draw from other influential conceptions of opera. This includes Joseph Kerman’s influential definition of opera as a ‘type of drama whose integral existence is determined from point to point and in the whole by musical articulation. Dramma per musica’ (2005, 10). He states that ‘not only operatic theory, but also operatic achievement bears this out’ (ibid). Given that this is a very common conception of opera, it is therefore appropriate to explore how music drives the narrative and drama of the work in question. How does this not only contribute to a sense that the work is “operatic,” but also that it is a continuation of opera’s legacy? Adjacently, the extent to which Wagner’s concept of the Gesamkunstwerk is manifest in these mixed-media installations will be explored. How might the influence of such a concept, combined with an adherence to Kerman’s definition, also contribute to the notion that opera’s legacy is continuing “living on” outside the confines of the opera house.
Internal versus External Perspectives on Opera
There is one other part of Grover-Friedlander’s book that is relevant to this thesis. In thinking about how to interpret opera Grover-Friedlander criticises two positions analysts of opera take: the internal and the external. With regard to the internal, she argues that scholars and critics in this domain alike are uncritical in their approach to opera and are often swept up by what they believe to be its “magic.” She states: ‘sometimes the writing itself is carried away in an attempt to recapture the ecstasies of the medium and its powerful attraction through verbal excess or an open confession of the emotions that opera engenders’ (ibid, 13). As an example of the internal, she refers to the writings of Wayne Koestenbaum. The Queen’s Throat (2001), essentially a love letter from Koestenbaum to the art form, is an illustration of such writing. He attests:
Listeners love when opera dethrones or kills language; the regicide, on these occasions, is the revolutionary, pleasure-seeking, penetrated, tickled ear. Opera theory tells us that words master music, but we, in our secret hearts, know music’s superiority; and this destruction of language, this reversal of hierarchy, makes opera a fit object for the enthusiasms of sex – and – gender dissidents (2001, 185).
It is this type of defensive and personalised stance that Grover-Friedlander purports is idiosyncratic because of the way in which it pedestals and idealises opera beyond reasonable analysis (2005, 13). As such, opera is perhaps unwittingly stereotyped by the internal camp, right into the hands of the external camp who accuse it of being a farcical cultural practice. Adorno, being such a critic writes: ‘it would be appropriate to consider opera as the specifically bourgeois genre which, in the midst and with the means of a world bereft of magic, paradoxically endeavours to preserve the magic element of art’ (1994, 29). Paul
Atkinson criticises Adorno for approaching opera in this way arguing that his analysis of opera is obscured by his own personal prejudice (2006, 35). Atkinson proposes that critics like Adorno (those external) tend to see opera very narrowly, preferring to see it as a purely cultural phenomenon that reflects and cements the power of modern bourgeois society. Here, Atkinson criticises Adorno for submitting a purely ‘canonical judgement’ that ‘attempts to legislate and to discriminate rather than to interpret its constituent works and genres’ (ibid). Viewed in this way, opera cannot be separated from its institution, because opera as an art reflects a specific bourgeois culture that is intrinsically linked to the “opera house,” which in turn is seen as a manifestation of elitist practices. Grover-Friedlander makes similar critiques, arguing that the shortcomings of the externalists stem from a reductionist perspective that diminishes opera’s attraction as being purely symptomatic of the social forces that inspire elitism and an unwarranted sense of cultural improvement. Thus, from the perspective of the externalists, ‘opera’s attraction is socially regressive and politically dubious, since opera is invariably ideologically motivated’ (Grover-Friedlander 2005, 14). It is in this way that the external position is as equally uncompromising as the internal.
In attempting to find a stance that is more impartial than the internal heedlessness of Koestenbaum and the external denunciation of Adorno, Grover-Friedlander proposes that:
Thinking about opera and cinema together can provide a position that assume neither total immersion in the operatic work or ideological estrangement from it. In a sense, such positions are opened by the transformation of the very life, or afterlife, of opera in cinema. Cinema can thus speak for opera’s truth, give it voice, and at times replace it, criticising its failures and illusions. A look at films that are driven by opera – drawn to it or haunted by its presence – reveals what might have been hidden if one were totally immersed in opera or if one were too
sceptical of its powers. Thus, in the idea of the refraction of one medium in another, we find the possibility of interpretation and criticism that avoids both the wholly internal and wholly external perspective (2005, 14-15).
This quote of Grover-Friedlander’s is particularly persuasive for the purposes of this thesis. Significantly, the notion that situating a form between immersion and estrangement, and between internal and external perspectives allows for a more comprehensive and unbiased analysis of the relationship that an art form, opera in this case, can develop in tangent with or effect other forms of art. In thinking about opera within the context of these mixed-media installations, opera is taken out of its “safe space,” its usual environment. This environment— historically that of the institution of the opera house as purported by Lindenberger (1998), Atkinson (2006) and Grover-Friedlander (2005) alike—holds huge cultural and social implications that clouds both the experience and therefore judgement of the internal enthusiasts and the external sceptics.
Opera and Mixed Media Installations as “Live” Art Forms
Finally, in relation to this second line of inquiry—although it is also relevant to the first and third—I draw from the work of Carolyn Abbate (2001). Reflecting on opera’s “modern” day existence, she writes:
What object are we honouring? … To write about opera, to represent it in fiction, or as a metaphor in poetry, or as a figure in philosophy, is to add to the architecture of its necropolis. This is ironic, because the first and enduring bases for a passion about opera are not operatic works in the abstract, as intentional objects, but operas and their singers in performances. One could ask whether
opera exists outside the performance that creates it in the only form of material being it can possess. The reason we put opera into video boxes or on film or inscribe it on LPs or CDs or other disks and cylinders is that we need to use “dead arts” to “rescue the ephemera and perishing art as the only one alive.” (2001, ix).
Here, Abbate is asking whether opera can be considered “real” if transmitted in a different medium than in live performance. This presents an interesting idea that is worth unpacking in relation to opera “living on” through these mixed-media installations. Abbate’s reference to videos, LPs and CDs as “dead” arts infers that in order for opera to be “real,” it is necessary that it is bound in time and space, the moment when it is performed and communicated in the “flesh.”
The works discussed below—which are also “alive” art works in the performative sense —reveal a different type of relationship to opera than the media listed above. Of installation art Mondloch writes:
Installation often overlaps with other post-1960s genres, such as fluxus, land art, minimalism, video art, performance, conceptual art, and process, all of which share an interest in issues such as site specificity, participation, institutional critique, temporality, and ephemerality. Installation artworks are participatory sculptural environments in which the viewer’s spatial and temporal experience with the exhibition space and the various objects within it forms part of the work itself. These pieces are meant to be experienced as activated spaces rather than discrete objects: they are designed to “unfold” during the spectator’s experience in time rather than to be known visually all at once. (2010, xiii)
While participation and site specificity are not usually concepts associated with opera, but they can be in particular performances (Invisible Cities being one such example), temporality and ephemerality, are more common to opera, especially with regard to the live experience in the theatre (which according to Abbate, should be considered “real” opera). It is this constitutive connection of ephemerality between opera and the mixed-media installations discussed that is of particular significance here. In analysing how the works below adopt and mobilise opera—whether that be the “actual” art form (for example, the vocals of an “actual” opera singer as mentioned above), or as this “imagined” thing (for example, how people perceive what opera is whether it be “actual” or not)—it is significant to remember that they do so as an “alive” art work. In this sense, it retains an “operatic-ness,” not only because of its use of “actual” or “imagined” opera, but because—and returning to Grover-Friedlander momentarily—there is a sense the moment will pass. Yes, it is not the case that any “real” opera “lives on” in the conventional sense, but the second line of inquiry relates to how is opera re-embodied through the live installation?
Excess and Extravagance
The final line of inquiry concerns how are these mixed-media installations are inspired by opera? Or more specifically this “idea” of opera? This question does overlap somewhat with the first question, in that the “operatic” is not just a specific trait such as the voice, but is also —as we have seen by Taylor-Johnson’s reference to the “operatic” in Killing Time—a reference to a feeling brought on by extremity.
Lindenberger writes: ‘by operatic I include such matters as its extravagance, its cultivation of excess, indeed a certain shamelessness that causes embarrassment to those who, throughout the long history of opera, have actively resisted whatever spells the medium has sought to exercise upon its beholders’ (1998, 104). Conrad with similar vigour writes: opera
‘is an art devoted to love and death … to the definition and interchangeability of the sexes; to madness and devilment’ (1987, 11). Even the already discussed internalist (Koestenbaum) and the externalist (Adorno), who see opera’s social and cultural function as oppositely beneficial, centre their idea of opera around its perceived magic and its ability to defy reality. These are old and deep-seated ideas about opera and are no doubt also where many of the criticisms levelled at the art form stem from (as shown by the concerns of Gelb and Hewett introduced at the beginning of this thesis). And yet both artists studied in the subsequent chapters refer to their respective works as ‘operas’. Oliver writes: ‘at a time when much in the world conspires toward reductionism and trivialisation, perhaps this is why opera, which, in Hamlet’s words, has always been a “dream of passion,” speaks to us in new ways today’ (1992, 42). As such, the question concerns how, and on what level, do the mixed-media installations indulge in these ideas about opera and the operatic? And, to what effect?
The Case Studies
The two mixed-media installations I analyse in Chapter II and III, are both created by artists who have not been artistically/professionally linked to the “world” of opera, but are more likely to be placed in the “world” that blurs the boundaries between cinema, music, theatre and installation art. The “world” concurrent with Taylor-Johnson’s, that defies traditional convention, that resists categorisation, but like opera has characteristics that mean that the nomenclature “mixed-media installation” is suitable. This is significant because as artists coming from outside the “world” of opera, and indeed perceivably conflicting worlds, their subsequent relationship with opera and how they draw from traditional conceptions of opera —as discussed above—is telling of opera’s attraction.
The first to be analysed is called Opera for a Small Room (2005) by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Wilson in fact refers to Cardiff and Miller’s work in the footnotes of her
article, arguing that it raises similar issues as Killing Time (2007, 261). However, I propose that Opera for a Small Room is more complex than being solely an exploration of the discrepancies between opera and everyday life. It is after all, as the artists title their piece, an opera. The second to be analysed is called Lucid Possession (2009-present). Created by artist Toni Dove the work pushes the boundaries of art and technology even further than that of Opera for a Small Room. Here, Dove creates an interactive, digitalised, virtual, three-dimensional environment in the setting of a theatre, which she then labels a ‘Geek Opera.’4
Lucid Possession is therefore a real work of convergence the lines between installation art, theatre and—I would argue—opera are enmeshed. The ensuing analyses of both these works shows that relationship between opera and these “other forms of high art” is intertwined at varying levels. Here, opera is not in opposition; it is an attraction.
4See “Art Meets Geek in Toni Dove’s Studio” to be found at Vloggest Entertainment at 0.31 seconds.
CHAPTER II
Opera for a Small Room
Background
Working together since the early 1990s, Opera for a Small Room is just one of many mixed-media installations created by Canadian husband and wife duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. On the website of the Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York, where the duo’s works are frequently exhibited, their biography states: ‘the artists are internationally recognised for their immersive and multimedia works that create transcendent multisensory experiences which draw the viewer into often unsettling narratives’ (Luhring Augustine 2016). Writing for Aspect Magazine, a journal dedicated to promoting new works of contemporary art, Cardiff and Miller write that:
For many years our work has been a hybrid between art, theatre and cinema. In previous installations we investigated the physicality and transcendence of the cinematic experience. In Opera for a Small Room we are interested in the traditions and transcendence of theatrical experience … Our work is very much about a conceptual play between the perception of what a viewer/listener thinks is the reality of the artwork and what their senses are telling them. In all our work it is these moments of magic and playfulness between rationality and the absurd that is interesting for us (Aspect Magazine 2016).
Having won the special jury prize at the world-renowned Venice Biennale in 2001 for their installation The Paradise Institute, Cardiff and Miller have been held in high esteem by the contemporary art world (e-flux 2008). Opera for a Small Room was first premiered at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria as part of a “Cardiff and Miller” exhibition series in 2005.
Since 2005, Opera for a Small Room has toured the world. Venues that have exhibited the work include, but are not limited to; the Sonambiente sound art festival in Berlin (2006), the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh (2008), the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2009), the Art Gallery of Ontario (2013), the Vancouver Art Gallery (2014) and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark (2014-2015). Apart from the change in venue, each time the work is exhibited it remains the same. The sound and the lighting may be tweaked for technical purposes, but the “box” containing Opera for a Small Room is not presented differently.
The reviews from critics have been mixed. Some are underwhelmed, while others find themselves emotionally overwhelmed by it. Such contrary reactions can be seen as follows. Writing for the Guardian in 2008, art critic Adrian Searle—reviewing the installation whilst exhibited in Edinburgh—writes: ‘Opera for a Small Room is something of a tour de force … [but] is so overegged as to makes us not care very much about it’ (Searle 2008). Reviewing the same exhibition, critic Richard Dorment from The Telegraph writes: ‘Cardiff and Miller show how music – like all art – can be a source of consolation and of pain. By taking us outside ourselves, it stifles our demons when nothing else, including hypnosis, works … These two extraordinary artists love to blend fact and fiction … their imaginative vision knows no bounds’ (Dorment 2008).
Notwithstanding such mixed reactions, Opera for a Small Room has recently sparked scholarly interest into how technology has changed operatic form, Michael Earley suggests that Opera for a Small Room is the ‘apotheosis of what opera has made of technology’ (2014, 240). However, I purport the reverse should also be asked. What have has Opera for a Small Room made of opera? Why might Cardiff and Miller make what they describe as an “opera” of his life rather than a “drama”? How is this installation not just “theatrical,” but justifiably “operatic”? What is the attraction of making it so? How does this affect Wilson’s conclusion that the relationship between opera, and “high” art such as this, is uneasy?
Narrative and Constitution
Kunsthaus Bregenz advertises the official narrative driving Opera for a Small Room as follows:
The work is inspired by a collection of opera records originally owned by a man named R. Dennehy who lives in Salmon Arm in British Columbia. The artists discovered his records at a secondhand store in that place. They are interested “in the extreme cultural juxtaposition of European opera and the small western town […]. So we made a small room for the opera of his life. There are 24 antique loud speakers out of which come various songs, sounds and arias, and occasional pop tunes. There are almost two thousand records stacked around the room and 8 record players which seem to play all at once […]. A man’s shadow, moving to the rhythm of the music, is back-projected onto a screen in the center of the array of turntables as if he is the DJ. […] He is playing a series of records, talking and singing to himself. […] The music mixes from poignant arias to a cacophony of voices and rhythms. Perhaps he is inventing a relationship with all of these voices and characters creating an aria for his own life. (Kunsthaus Bregenz 2016).
This has been the general description of the work with minor edits being made along the way as seen fit by the respective galleries. To create the above, Cardiff and Miller combine ‘mixed media with sound, record players, records and synchronised lighting’ (Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller 2016). A video of the installation can be found via their website, which in analysing this piece was particularly useful as it gives an audience perspective.5 Here, the
5 See the video link below:
audience do not infiltrate the room; rather they look through glassless windows, peering into the constructed living room of R. Dennehy (see Fig II).
Fig II. Opera for a Small Room (2005). Photo sourced from Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (2016).
Killing Time versus Opera for a Small Room
Opera for a Small Room can be viewed as similar to Taylor-Johnson’s Killing Time in that it explores the perceived discrepancies between opera and everyday life. Commenting on why they decided to create the twenty-minute installation Cardiff and Miller, as previously mentioned, stated that they wanted to explore ‘the extreme cultural juxtaposition between opera and the small western town in which R. Dennehy lived’ (Kunsthaus Bregenz 2016). In mentioning Opera for a Small Room in her footnotes, Wilson implies that the two can be compared on this front in that it too is a critique on the unattainability of opera as an institution (Wilson 2007, 261): the opera house and the cosmopolitan metropolis do indeed seem far away from Dennehy’s living room (as it does for the subjects of Killing Time). It is on this level that Wilson uses Cardiff and Miller’s installation to support her conclusion that the relationship between “opera” and “other forms of high art” is uneasy.
However, the contradictions present in Wilson’s conclusion yet again become apparent. It is tangible that what is presented in Opera for a Small Room displays an “uneasy” relationship with the institutionalisation of opera. It could be viewed as so if Opera for a Small Room is perceived purely as a mixed-media installation that gives the real-life Dennehy and his record collection a home, an after-life, while the perceived “heart” of opera, the opera house, is exhibited as a somewhat unattainable place during his life time. In this sense, it could be argued that the installation’s sentiment has a dig at opera’s exclusivity. Yet, on the other hand while Cardiff and Miller arguably explore similar themes, the installation does not take the ostensibly critical stance that Taylor-Johnson’s does. Rather than explicitly critiquing opera, they explore the ways in which Dennehy’s life is connected to opera and in what capacity.
The critique that Taylor-Johnson makes explicit in Killing Time owes itself to the notion that opera is an “elite” cultural practice, an art form that is detached from and irrelevant to everyday life because it is intimately connected with the opera house, a place few visit regularly. In Killing Time, placing opera in the living room enhances this sentiment, the sense that opera does not belong in this environment, conflicting with day-to-day life experiences. In Opera for a Small Room however, opera is not set apart from the subject in this way. Opera is shown to form part of his everyday life, intimately connected with Dennehy’s narrative rather than divorced from it. The utilisation of Dennehy’s “actual” record collection of opera singers arguably inspires this explorative, rather than outwardly critical investigation.
Challenging Conceptions
Significantly, no physical connection between Dennehy’s narrative and the opera house is ever made in Opera for a Small Room. Dennehy’s connection with opera is just as displayed
by Cardiff and Miller: the living room, the source of the music (the phonograph), and the emanating opera arias. If we were to accept the notion explored by Abbate (2001), that “real” opera can only exist in the context of live performance, the absence of Dennehy’s connection to the opera house—as the traditional place of performance—indeed enhances the feeling that Dennehy is (and was) far removed from the “real” world of opera. It thus would appear as though Dennehy can only connect to the “alive” art (opera) through the “dead” art (the phonograph): “dead” and “alive” here raising issues of economic and social attainability. However, the installation could also be read as Cardiff and Miller directly challenging this conception of opera as only “real” in the context of performance: here is a man, who lived in remote Canada, engaging with “actual” opera through his love of opera arias and a penchant for collecting these records. The sentiment here does not make a mockery of opera’s unattainability, instead it encapsulates a man’s relationship with the art form and shows that opera is not just confined to the opera house, but has a very “real” existence outside of it; it shows that the advancement of technology, as advocated by Earley, has allowed people to enjoy opera on different levels and has changed the ways in which we can engage with the art form (2014, 240).
This is where Taylor-Johnson’s commentary on opera and Cardiff and Miller’s exploration of opera collide. It would seem that Taylor-Johnson starts with a supposition of opera that is in line with the notion explored by Abbate: that in order for opera to be experienced in any “real” or proper sense it must be within the context of performance, which traditionally is in the opera house (2001, ix). Furthermore, technological advancement has not muddied this distinction for Taylor-Johnson, as shown by the unmoved responses of her subjects to the music being played in their respective living rooms. Cardiff and Miller on the other hand, explore a man’s connection with opera through his record collection. Opera in this context, is not thought of in the same way. “Real” for Dennehy is what is being
