Contradictory Directorial Trends in the 21th Century Opera Performance

Abstract

In opera, music suggests atmosphere, characters, situations, and conflicts in a language of its own and is stylistically determined. In the art of opera performance of the 21st century, there is a noticeable distance, sometimes total, from the intentions of composers and librettists who, in their time, worked particularly closely to create an opera score. Therefore, I considered it necessary to analyze the directorial trends in the art of opera performance of the 21st century, reaching the conclusion that they are contradictory. The study captures these different directions of opera directing today, without the intention of making value judgments or classifications, but mentioning the fact that exaggerated deviations from the initial musical score can generate errors that have nothing in common with an authentic artistic act and an act of culture.