Participatory Opera by Caton, Kathryn L.;

Short description:

Through the examination of participatory elements, theories, and practices, this book defines participatory opera, explores ways it challenges traditional roles of “audience,” “performer,” and “author,” and situates Euro-American participatory opera within the context of participatory philosophy, theory, and art of the twentieth century.

Long description:

Participatory Opera offers a critical analysis of spectator immersion and participation in contemporary opera, and explores resultant intersections with notions of individuality and community within these emerging contexts. As such, this book defines participatory opera, explores ways it challenges traditional roles of "audience," "performer," and "author," and situates Euro-American participatory opera within the broader context of participatory philosophy, theory, and art of the twentieth century. Part I examines key philosophies and theories surrounding audience participation throughout the twentieth century that later manifest in experimental opera works. Part II draws together the diverse practices and approaches described in the previous chapters towards a unifying theory of participatory opera through several case studies of twenty-first-century participatory operas. As a whole, this book reveals participatory opera as a contested site of meaning and intention, particularly agile and adaptive, and inherently value-laden, political, and antagonistic.

Academic yet accessible, this book is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students, although professionals and practitioners may also find it appealing. Opera scholars will find this book addresses a critical element of contemporary opera. Likewise, scholars of participatory art will find it reveals that opera, too, engages with participatory practices and histories and should be incorporated into discourses surrounding participatory art. Scholars of experimental and avant-garde music and theater will find this text re-examines the relationship between opera and experimental art and theater.

Kathryn L. Caton teaches music history and literature at the University of Houston, Moores School of Music. Her research interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century opera, the long avant-garde, and experimental, collaborative, and participatory performance. She also serves as the co-chair of the Society for American Music’s Experimental Music Interest Group.

"Caton offers a meticulous history of late 20th-century ‘participatory’ artistic traditions, highlighting experimental figures often overlooked in broader narratives. Her incisive critique of the cultural capital and political valence of ‘participation’ in 21st-century opera prompts a crucial re-examination of this frequently invoked yet heavily freighted term within experimental music and performance studies."
Charissa Noble, University of San Diego

"Participatory Opera offers an insightful and wide-ranging investigation of twentieth-century efforts to engage audiences directly in experimental performance events. Caton then focuses on multiple highly pertinent contemporary operas, prompting readers to rethink the role and place of opera’s audiences today."
W. Anthony Sheppard, author of Revealing Masks and Extreme Exoticism

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Opera and Participation

PART I: The Rhetoric of Participation

1 Participation and Power

2 "Towards Theater": The Art-Life Merger,

3 Discoursing Site-Specific and Participatory Values 

PART II: Participatory Opera in the Twenty-First Century

4. Between Rhetoric and Reality: Participation in Invisible Cities and Hopscotch

5. I Want You to Know Me: Process, Genre, and Activism

6. Another City: New Genre Public Opera

Conclusion: A Contested Site