Opera on the Horizon of Postminimalism

Abstract

In his essay “A Forest from the Seeds of Minimalism”, Kyle Gann discusses developments of postminimal techniques in various musical poetics that came after the era of strict minimalist procedures. Similarly to Gann, my aim is to consider ‘what came after’ minimalist music, although my discussions extends also to the visual arts. I will zoom in on what is happening to postminimalism in recent opera productions that further redefine the world of opera. This includes works by less central figures than those whose works had a major impact on postminimalist operatic aesthetics, such as Glass, Andriessen, Reich and Adams. Some of the postoperas I would like to discuss are: operatic installations by Marguerite Humeau, Claudia Molitor, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; ‘television operas after TV’ where opera and television reinvent each other (minute operas by Michel van der Aa and the reality opera The News by Jacob ter Veldhuis (Jacob TV), Invisible Cities an opera for headphones by Yuval Sharon and Christopher Cerrone, and the opera Two Boys by Nico Muhly. The status of postminimalism in each of these works will be examined in order to see how and why its functions in opera change.