| الملخص: | <p>Operatic performances invoking circus action have gained prominence since the late twentieth century. This thesis argues for the musico-dramatic contribution of aerial circus action in contemporary opera performance. There are two central claims of the thesis. One, that the spatial relationships created by the actual aerial circus actions in an opera performance contribute to musico-dramatic interpretations of an opera. Two, that the interdisciplinary study of opera and circus can offer insights into our understanding of how an opera in performance creates and communicates meaning.</p>
<p>By adopting a performative approach to the analysis of opera in performance, I isolate the musico-dramatic functions of spatial relationships produced by and complicated through the execution of circus action by an aerialist with a circus apparatus. Through an examination of a high-wire act in Alvis Hermanis’s 2012 Salzburg Festival production of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten (1960-64), aerial rope and aerial harness ensemble actions in Louise Moaty and Raphaëlle Boitel 2017 staging of Marin Marais’s Alcione (1706), and Japanese bondage in suspension and aerial contortion in Romeo Castellucci’s 2011 production of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal (1882), the thesis demonstrates the musico-dramatic contributions of spatial relationships created through aerial circus action in opera performance.</p>
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