Embodying the virtual: ‘Digital opera’ as a new Gesamtkunstwerk?

ABSTRACT

In this article I seek to draw a relationship between Wagner's theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk as defined by Nicholas Cook in Analysing Musical Multimedia (1998), and the dialectic evident between ideas of embodied reception and the experience of the digital in live performance, as conceptualized by Jill Dolan and Philip Auslander. Exploring the relationship between complementation in Wagnerian theory (from Cook) and the opposing ontologies put forward by Dolan and Auslander, I will examine the way virtual animations and projections are integrated into the aesthetic values and directorial visions of particular theatrical works with specific reference to two works of musical theatre — The Woman in White (2005) and Sunday in the Park with George (2007 revival). In doing so, I will engage with the idea of a new Gesamtkunstwerk, wherein ‘digital opera’ may be defined in relation to live performance as the point at which the virtual meets, wrangles with, challenges, comments upon and interacts with the visceral.

KEYWORDS:

• Dolan
• Auslander
• embodied space
• virtual space
• Gesamtkunstwerk
• Cognitive studies
• Cultural mediation