‘Rigoletto’: Variety of Screen Forms and Specifics of Staging Solutions for Classical Opera in Cinema and on Television

Abstract

In domestic science there is a perception that today’s opera, under the pressure of massification, simultaneously tries to preserve the elusive traditions of “high” art and lowers the bar to the level of mass culture, while the availability of technological possibilities of transferring opera to the screen is not able to change the preferences of the mass audience, unable to perceive it adequately. It cannot be denied that in the 21st century an uninitiated mass audience’s perception of classical opera is largely formed on the basis of screen representations of musical drama. In this context, the analysis of the applied staging solutions in cinema and television in the incarnation of opera, which includes the determination of the components that are necessary for the qualitative screen representation of musical drama, becomes a relevant subject for scientific research. In this article, which is dedicated to 170th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto, an attempt is made to analyze four screen forms of one musical drama different from each other with the aim to reveal variability of staging solutions used for the realization of classical opera on TV and in cinema. The specific features of cinematographic and television representation of musical drama influencing the actualization and popularization of opera in the modern screen space are revealed within different genre frames (film-opera, TV version of musical drama, live TV film, musical TV contest). The author identifies the central figure in the latter processes the director-director, a professional in the field of television, who understands the fundamental laws and staging techniques of musical theater, the expressive means of cinematography.