Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera

<p>Both in opera studies and in most operatic works, the singing body is often taken for granted. In <i>Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body</i>, Jelena Novak reintroduces an awareness of the physicality of the singing body to opera studies. Arguing that the voice-body relationship itself is a producer of meaning, she furthermore posits this relationship as one of the major driving forces in recent opera. She takes as her focus six contemporary operas - <i>La Belle et la Bête </i>(Philip Glass), <i>Writing to Vermeer </i>(Louis Andriessen, Peter Greenaway), <i>Three Tales </i>(Steve Reich, Beryl Korot), <i>One </i>(Michel van der Aa), <i>Homeland </i>(Laurie Anderson), and <i>La Commedia</i> (Louis Andriessen, Hal Hartley) - which she terms ''postoperas''. These pieces are sites for creative exploration, where the boundaries of the opera world are stretched. Central to this is the impact of new media, a de-synchronization between image and sound, or a redefinition of body-voice-gender relationships. Novak dissects the singing body as a set of rules, protocols, effects, and strategies. That dissection shows how the singing body acts within the world of opera, what interventions it makes, and how it constitutes opera’s meanings.</p>