Opera Cinema: A New Cultural Experience

Since 2006, leading opera companies have beamed their shows to thousands of cinema screens all over the world – live. ‘Opera cinema’ is the most successful marriage of this elaborate, esoteric art form and the silver screen. In the twenty-first century, more people watch opera on cinema screens than the stage. But what is different about watching Massenet at the multiplex, compared to a traditional stage performance? Is opera cinema a new, hybrid art form in its own right, or merely a new way of engaging with an old one? Is it bringing new opera fans into the fold? Is there a danger it could one day eclipse the stage altogether? This book deals with these questions by charting the history of opera transmissions, exploring how digital media changes our relationship with culture and inviting a group of ‘opera virgins’ to give their impressions on this developing cultural experience.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements
About the author
Preface

1. What is Opera Cinema?
2. The History of Opera Cinema
3. What Makes it Opera Cinema?
4. The Opera Virgins Project
5. A Night at the Opera Cinema?

Bibliography
Media Texts Cited
Index

The surprising emergence and growth of live transmission of opera to the cinema has been nothing if not paradoxical. With a global reach and often sold-out cinemas, the transmissions seem to offer a blueprint for opera companies eager to broaden their reach and secure a future in a digital media environment. Yet, well into their second decade the transmissions still lack an agreed name, critics often seem unsure what to make of them, and scholars have yet to give them anything like the attention they deserve. Joseph Attard addresses these contradictions, confronting the crucial question of the identity of the transmissions as a medium, interrogating some of the key critical and scholarly responses to date and, crucially, initiating the important work of understanding audience expectation and reaction. Nuanced and critically astute, Opera Cinema: A New Cultural Experience addresses a gap in scholarship in ways that will appeal to readers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as those simply curious about one of the more intriguing and unexpected developments in opera, and in cinema, in recent years.