Don't Look Now: Opera, Liveness, and the Televisual

Abstract

In 2005, on the occasion of the “Opera Goes to the Movies” festival in Washington, DC, Philip Kennicott, a writer for the Washington Post, assessed the state of opera on film in an article entitled “Opera and Film: Can This Union Be Saved?” Arguing that the “relationship” between opera and film is “long-standing” but not entirely “fruitful,” Kennicott echoed the dissatisfaction of many critics. “Where are the great films of opera?” he asked. “Yet to be made. The form has never conquered what might be called the tongue-and-teeth problem. While it makes perfect sense within the opera house that everything is sung, when transferred onto film, the opera illusion often breaks down. Suddenly one is wrenched from a world where it's normal for people to say hello and good night and I love you in song, into a world where you notice huge gaping mouths, swelling diaphragms, quivering tongues and glistening teeth. … Rather than assist in the creation of theatrical intimacy, the camera usually punctures the basic illusion essential to opera.”1

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