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The Ambivalent Destiny of Opera on Screen
Publication . Cachopo, João Pedro; Centro de Estudos em Música (CESEM - NOVA FCSH)
The encounter between opera and cinema dates back to the birth of the motion picture at the dawn of the twentieth century. Yet only recently have the various aspects of the complex and multi-layered relationship between the two media aroused interest among an array of scholars from different disciplines. This involves the intefration of film in opera staging, the transformation of operas into films (the so-called opera films) or the appearance of operatic characters or themes in feature-length cinema. The focus of this paper is the exploration of an object that does not fully belong to any of the above-mentioned categories. We are speaking of Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations (2014), a movie that portrays the encounter of Elisa von der Recke (Veronika Ferres) with the now seventy-three years old Venetian seducer (John Malkovich), whose memories are brought back to life as excerpts from the Mozart-Da Ponte operas. The movie thus brings together opera, theatre, and cinema in ways that are far from being conventional. To tackle the complexity and ambivalence of this object, we will focus on the series: Malkovich-Mozart- Casanova. It contains what seems to be the key to analysing this hybrid object in relation to recent and on-going debates about the relationship between opera and cinema. In sum, our hypothesis is that in Casanova Variations the relationship between opera (emblematized by Mozart) and cinema (embodied by Malkovich) is somehow mediated by the principle of seduction (symbolized by Casanova). The implications of such a hypothesis for both cinema and opera are what this paper aims to discuss.
Em busca de um fio condutor
Publication . Cachopo, João Pedro; Centro de Estudos em Música (CESEM - NOVA FCSH)
No ensaio “In Praise of Profanation”, Agamben reelabora o conceito de profanação no contexto do que Benjamin chamou, num fragmento póstumo, a religião do capitalismo. Num mundo em que troca, o consumo e a exibição espectaculares parecem inviabilizar todo e qualquer uso, o gesto profanatório representaria a possibilidade, ainda que precária, de uma relação com objectos irredutível a fins pré-determinados. Nesta comunicação, adoptando como pano de fundo o modo como neste ensaio de Agamben se compreende o conceito de profanação, procurarei discutir até que ponto faz sentido caracterizar certas representações cinematográficas da ópera como profanações daquele género músico-teatral. Entre os vários motivos que parecem tornar esta hipótese pertinente para discutir em termos politicamente desafiantes o encontro entre aqueles dois géneros, conta-se o facto de Agamben nos convidar a conceber a profanação como uma tentativa de resgatar um objecto ou prática à tradição (seja ela efectivamente religiosa ou genericamente cultural) sem equiparar tal resgate a uma integração desse objecto ou prática na “lógica cultural do capitalismo tardio”. Profanar a ópera – e a questão é saber em que sentido o cinema o pode fazer – significaria então mais do que rejeitar o “valor de culto”; implicaria também não confundir o “valor de uso”, enquanto oposto quer ao “valor de culto” quer ao “valor de troca”, com os seus sucedâneos ou duplos: o consumo e a exibição espectaculares.
An Inverted Palimpsest?
Publication . Cachopo, João Pedro; Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM - NOVA FCSH)
“Film opera” – whether defined as a sub-genre or simply as opera adapted to the screen – stands out as a multi-layered object of inquiry, in which the stakes of intermediality and intertextuality are inextricably bound up with each other. Indeed, the film adds another layer of complexity to the already dense web of “texts” that constitute all and every opera (from the immediate interaction between musical and textual notation to the mediation of all sorts of archi-, meta-, and para-textual elements). Drawing on Genette’s approach to transtextuality, I will bring the concept of hypertextuality to bear on film operas that reshape, in a more or less drastic way, a pre-existing opera. My aim is (1) to shed light on both the connection and distinction between intermediality and intertextuality, and (2) to discuss the extent to which the concept of hypertextuality (and the inquiry on intertextuality more generally) may broaden and enrich the debate on the encounter between opera and film. Against this background, I will focus on two film versions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Carefully pondered, Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni (1979) and Kasper Holten’s Juan (2010) appear as re-readings of Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s masterpiece in which “class” and “gender” come to play a major role. This contrast – between the emphasis on “class” (Losey) and “gender” (Holten) – seems to tell us a big deal about the uses of opera in contemporaneity, as if these two historical moments (late 1970s and early 2010) were the erased text of a culturally and artistically saturated palimpsest. So seen, it is the present, rather than the past, that is hidden – but not as hidden as to become invisible – behind the cinematic re-writing of the opera. What can we learn about the very tension between these two “presents” by comparing them with their common “past”? And what does such deciphering tell us about the (changing) role of opera in late modernity? These are among the questions to be raised in the wake of a comparative analysis of Losey’s and Holten’s works that will nonetheless unfold with the above-mentioned questions in mind.
A Scene is Missing
Publication . Cachopo, João Pedro; Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM - NOVA FCSH)
It is undeniable that Adorno revolutionized the way of understanding the relationship between music and society as no other theorist in the orbit of the Frankfurt School, or even Marxism. According to him, music’s ultimate political meaningfulness lies in that music, as art in general, is the social antithesis of society. This antithesis, however, operates within the immanent logic of music, not at the level of social or communicative practices. Hence, Adorno is generally credited with a defence of modernism in music and is often seen as occupying a parallel position to that of Greenberg in visual arts. However, not only his praise of Mahler’s modernity (despite the obsolescence of his material), but also his late account of the relationship between the arts—let alone his criticism of total serialism—do not match the picture of Adorno as a purely modernist thinker of music. Though the acknowledgment of Adorno’s importance for discussing music politically provides an important background for my paper, my aim is not to reassess his aesthetics of music as such. Rather, I will focus on the question of the politics of music and ask whether/how it is possible to make sense of it beyond the framework of modernism. In order to do so, I will draw on Rancière’s work without losing sight of Adorno’s main insights. Two reasons justify this move: first, the fact that Rancière unfolds his aesthetic-political approach to art (from The Distribution of the Sensible to Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art) against the background of an explicit criticism of both modernist and postmodernist discourses on art (which he blames for illegitimately linking a political understanding of art to a teleological conception of history); second, the conviction that, though Rancière’s pronouncements on music are rare (albeit not non-existent), the way he understands the (meta)politics of the arts as a reconfiguration of the “distribution of the sensible” (i.e., as a displacement of the borders between visible and invisible, intelligible and unintelligible, audible and inaudible) not only may be brought to bear on music, but shares a lot with Adorno’s most challenging claims on the unobvious political features of music. From this perspective, my paper is an attempt both to discuss the relevance of Rancière’s work in the field of music, and to bring Adorno’s and Rancière’s main insights together so as to open up new paths of inquiry into the political significance of music under contemporary conditions.
Para uma Dialéctica Constelar
Publication . Cachopo, João Pedro; Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM - NOVA FCSH); Universidade Estadual Paulista
Interrogando-se sobre o lugar da filosofia de Theodor W. Adorno no âmbito do pensamento crítico contemporâneo, o presente artigo procura dar conta dos revezes da recepção político-filosófica da dialéctica negativa (das posturas críticas de Habermas, Lyotard ou Agamben às mais favoráveis de Jameson e Holloway) e discutir a sua relevância actual. Defender-se-á que a politização do pensamento adorniano é possível, muito embora as suas valências críticas não se restrinjam a essa possibilidade. Hoje, a dialéctica negativa funcionaria também como antídoto contra os atalhos tomados pelas correntes "voluntarista" (Peter Hallward), "messiânica" (Agamben) e "ontológica" (realismo especulativo) da filosofia, à entrada do século XXI. Contudo, atendendo a que a relação entre teoria e prática é complexa em Adorno, a sua relevância actual ressaltaria em relação com as reacções críticas que o movimento do "realismo especulativo" tem suscitado. Em diálogo com alguns dos seus interlocutores (Markus Gabriel e Adrian Johnston), sugere-se que o desenvolvimento de uma "dialéctica constelar" depende da introdução de um elemento destotalizador no seio do diagnóstico radical - a um só tempo materialista e transcendental - da dialéctica negativa. Questioning the place of Theodor W. Adorno's philosophy within contemporary critical thought, this article attempts to account for the politico-philosophical reception of Adorno's negative dialectics (from critical appraisals by Habermas, Lyotard, or Agamben, to sympathetic ones by Jameson or Holloway) and to discuss its present-day relevance. I argue that it is possible to politicize Adorno's work, although its critical valences go far beyond this possibility. Today, negative dialectics would provide an antidote against the shortcuts taken by 'voluntarist' (cf. Peter Hallward), 'messianic' (cf. Agamben) and 'ontological' (cf. speculative realism) turns/trends in twenty-first-century philosophy. However, in view of the complexity of Adorno's appraisal of the interplay between theory and praxis, the current relevance of his thought gains plausibility by being linked with critical responses to 'speculative realism'. In dialogue with some of its interlocutors (Markus Gabriel and Adrian Johnston), I suggest that developing a 'constellative dialectics' depends on the introduction of a detotalizing element within the radical - at once materialistic and transcendental - diagnosis of negative dialectics.
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Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
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SFRH/BPD/79759/2011