The Aura of Opera Reproduced: Fantasies and Traps in the Age of the Cinecast

Abstract

Aiming to contribute to an ongoing debate on the relationship between opera and screen media, my article begins by posing a number of questions about the aesthetic and political implications of technological reproduction. I then examine and critique a paradox that pervades our media-saturated culture—namely, that the remediation of musical-theatrical works is often treated as a means of enhancing, rather than of questioning, a sense of authenticity, uniqueness, and presence. This in turn leads me to an analysis of three objects (and three fantasies) in which this paradox, which is bound up with a strange blend of nostalgia and an urge for excess, takes on paradigmatic form. I conclude with a critical reflection on the challenge inherent in recording and broadcasting operatic stage productions. Throughout, I aim to suggest ways of avoiding a fetishization of liveness without, however, falling into another trap—the simple dichotomization of liveness and mediatization.

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