Opera in Performance: Analyzing the Performative Dimension of Opera Productions

Opera in Performance elucidates the performative dimension of contemporary opera productions.

What are the most striking and decisive moments in a performance? Why do we respond so strongly to stagings that transform familiar scenes, to performers’ bodily presence, and to virtuosic voices as well as ill-disposed ones? Drawing on phenomenology and performance theory, Clemens Risi explains how these moments arise out of a dialogue between performers and the audience, representation and presen...