Audio-visual Metaphors in Operatic Shakespeare : Verdi’s Macbeth and Otello in Czech Theatres
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | This chapter considers both the ways of transforming Shakespeare’s plays into opera librettos, and the staging practice of particular Shakespearean operas. It focuses on staging of two operas based on Shakespeare’s plays composed by Giuseppe Verdi – Macbeth and Otello. The topic is treated with special reference to operatic scenography, especially regarding the issue of creating innovative audio-visual metaphors on stage. One of the essential questions may be summarized as follows: how are these (stage) metaphors rooted in Shakespeare’s plays as such? In the investigation of this topic, many specific productions of Shakespearean operas are included, both from the Czech Republic (and former Czechoslovakia, especially from the State Theatre in Brno) and from prominent world opera houses. The chapter’s central aim is to consider what operas based on Shakespeare’s plays bring to the theatrical stage, from the point of view of (for example) theatrical aesthetics and semantics, especially in the area of scenography – which is treated here not just as a visual parameter, but as an audio-visual artistic discipline. |
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