Introduction

Summary

The study of the intersection of opera and film is relatively new. It began two decades ago with Jeremy Tambling's influential volume Opera, Ideology and Film (1987), which stresses opera's political role when it appears in filmic form. Musicology turned to opera and film a bit later, and the area has flourished amid the field's embrace of interdisciplinary topics and music for film. Three books have laid a foundation and formed a critical first stage. Opera on Screen, my study from 2000, offers a preliminary framework for interpreting full-length screen versions of opera. In an exploration of key repertoire, it addresses medial differences among cinema, television, and video and suggests ways of thinking about the relationship between live and filmed opera. Two years later a vibrant collection extends the conversation. Between Opera and Cinema, edited by Jeongwon Joe and Rose Theresa, juxtaposes diverse approaches to a wide swath of repertoire. In addition to studies of full-length opera treatments, many essays discuss opera's role in mainstream films or non-Western traditions. The third book is Michal Grover-Friedlander's Vocal Apparitions: The Attraction of Cinema to Opera (2005). Through readings of selected films, this innovative study explores the spectral implications of the voice in operatic encounters with visual and aural media. Meanwhile, major articles have appeared in journals and edited volumes.

I see the present study as part of a second generation of scholarship, joining recent publications such as the collection Wagner and Cinema.