Telenovela’s orality: from medium to a linguistic-discursive construction

Telenovela’s orality: from medium to a linguistic-discursive construction. Studies about telenovelas usually highlight their "orality". However, a literature review, specifically for Latin American telenovelas, shows that the term "orality" has been used with varying senses. In contrast with those devoted to telenovelas, literary studies have addressed the question by conceptualizing it as fictional orality. This paper takes fictional orality as a key concept to explain telenovela’s discursive peculiarities, and on that base, it distinguishes several dimensions of linguistic and discursive variation, in which such orality is being portrayed.

Violetta Undone: Getting Closer to Opera By Not Making Opera

In early 2016 students at the University of Worcester were set the task of creating an adaptation of Verdi’s La traviata, a work which they knew from having seen the production by Richard Eyre live streamed from the Royal Opera House, at the Odeon Cinema in Worcester. The majority of students attested that this was their first encounter with opera and many were not looking forward to the project. This paper will describe and examine the process of adaptation and will reflect on how the mediated experience of the opera informed the final live production. It will also examine how the devisers of a new work, called Violetta Undone, considered the inclusion of musical and dramatic themes from the opera, as well as how they considered matters of relevance to contemporary audiences. The paper will furthermore consider how this process of undoing the opera not only fulfilled the requirements of the module (to learn about the processes of adaptation) but also brought the students closer to opera as an art-form. The paper will reflect on how, what was ultimately produced, not only radically deviated from what we understand as opera (as represented by the production which acted as a stimulus) but simultaneously adhered closely to the theoretical notion of gesamtkunstwerk which lies at the heart of opera theory. Additionally, questions that will be considered include: What lessons might be learned about educating drama students about opera? And how might undoing opera in a collaborative way inform dramaturgical explorations of operas?

‘The Emergence of the Operatic’

The chapter discusses the notion of the ‘operatic’ with particular reference to movement. Through observation of singers in rehearsal and through interviews with singers over two years, the research posits that ‘operatic’ movement may be identified and explored as a discrete quality of movement in performance and recognised as an, albeit underappreciated, aspect of the artistry of the opera singer. The paper explores the effects of the demands of singing on the dramatic expressivity of the body and the strategies employed by singers to navigate, the sometimes conflicting demands of the composer and the director. ‘Operatic’ movement is regarded as that which is not generated through character or narrative (positioned as a normative approach to acting) but through the negotiation of the physical constrictions and artificiality of breath associated with operatic singing, combined with sensitivity towards opera’s non-normative performance conventions. This position is aided by an interrogation of opera through the lens of gender theory. The chapter makes two propositions, that the ‘operatic’, which does not form part of the formal pedagogy of singers, is an emergent property, especially evident at the intersection of the various creative disciplines that contribute to opera, such as when the orchestra is introduced to the rehearsal process, and that ‘operaticness’ is acquired and passed on through a process of kinaesthetic empathy.

A ideologia da encenação: uma análise dos aspectos cênico/ideológicos da encenação produzida pela indústria cultural

The research that led to this dissertation adopted a set of scenic/ideological aspects inherent to the productions of the Culture Industry as its object of research. The intellectual output of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer underscored the approaches on this subject, since it provides the same set of scenic/ideological features to be explored because, according to the authors, scenes produced by the culture industry are linked to the dominant ideology, since they act in favor of maintaining the status quo. The first objective was the definition this set of features inherent to the scene produced by the culture industry, through the exploration of literature produced by Adorno and Horkheimer, so it was possible to define a set composed of nine elements: Construction of characters as characteristic types; Stereotypes; Naturalization of Stereotyped language; Simplistic playwriting; Reuse dramatic formula; Love and sexuality as themes of plots; Utilization of tragic element; Objetive representation; Approximation of fiction and reality. The second goal was the analysis of scene produced by the culture industry nowadays, so that it was possible to verify if any scenic/ideological aspects indicated by Adorno and Horkheimer in the mid-twentieth century were present among the productions from this beginning of the twenty-first century. Through the analysis of three soap operas produced in Brazil in 2012, it was found that the nine scenic/ideological aspects as indicated by Adorno and Horkheimer appeared in the observed productions. Additionally, a new scenic/ideological feature, not indicated by Adorno and Horkheimer is present: the merchandising

W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte An Arrangement and Performance Edition for Wind Instruments and Vocal Soloists

The purpose of this dissertation is to produce a new Harmonie arrangement of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte suitable for modern performance, bringing Joseph Heidenreich’s 1782 arrangement—one of the great treasures of the wind repertoire—to life for future performers and audiences. I took advantage of the capabilities of modern wind instruments and performance techniques, and employed other instruments normally found in the modern wind ensemble to create a work in the tradition of Heidenreich’s that restored as much of Mozart’s original thinking as possible. I expanded the Harmonie band to include flute and string bass. Other instruments provide special effects, a traditional role for wind instruments in the Classical opera orchestra. This arrangement is conceived to be performed with the original vocal soloists, making it a viable option for concert performance or for smaller staged productions. It is also intended to allow the wind players to be onstage with the singers, becoming part of the dramatic action while simultaneously serving as the “opera orchestra.” This allows creative staging possibilities, and offers the wind players an opportunity to explore new aspects of performing. My arrangement also restores Mozart’s music to its original keys and retains much of his original wind scoring. This arrangement expands the possibilities for collaboration between opera studios, voice departments or community opera companies and wind ensembles. A suite for winds without voices (currently in production) will allow conductors to program this major work from the Classical era without dedicating a concert program to the complete opera. Excerpted arias and duets from this arrangement provide vocalists the option of using chamber wind accompaniment on recitals. The door is now open to arrangements of other operas by composers such as Mozart, Rossini and Weber, adding new repertoire for chamber winds and bringing great music to life in a new way.

O mito de Orfeo e a ópera no século XVII: um estudo sobre o surgimento da ópera em Itália

Durante o século XVII, em Itália, uma série de óperas foram escritas retratando o drama mitológico de Orfeu e Eurídice. O presente trabalho é uma investigação sobre a presença recorrente do mito de Orfeu nos libretos de ópera, especialmente durante as primeiras décadas do século XVII, e sobre a importância dessa história específica para o surgimento e consolidação da ópera como gênero. Essa dissertação divide-se em três grandes capítulos: 1. estudo do contexto histórico, social, político e artístico que culminou na criação da ópera; 2. análise de obras importantes para a história da ópera e que apresentam temática sobre o mito de Orfeu; 3. discussão sobre as questões interpretativas inerentes à preparação e execução de um recital com repertório sobre o tema selecionado.

Gdy słowo musi być posłuszne dźwiękowi. Librecista Ryszard Wagner i jego Pierścień Nibelunga

Wydział Neofilologii: Instytut Filologii Germańskiej

The Drama of History: Representation and Revolutionaries in Haitian Theater, 1818-1907

Since the beginning of the Haitian theatrical tradition there has been an ineluctable dedication to the representation of Haitian history on stage. Given the rich theatrical archive about Haiti throughout the world, this study considers operas and plays written solely by Haitian playwrights. By delving into the works of Juste Chanlatte, Massillon Coicou, and Vendenesse Ducasse this study proposes a re-reading of Haitian theater that considers the stage as an innovative site for contesting negative and clichéd representations of the Haitian Revolution and its revolutionary leadership. A genre long mired in accusations of mimicking European literary forms, this study proposes a reevaluation of Haitian theater and its literary origins.

Sexism and Imperialism in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and Blitzstein's Regina: A Performance Study

This dissertation project comprises three major operatic performances and an accompanying document; a performance study which surveys aspects of sexism and imperialism as represented in three operas written over the last three centuries by examining the implications of prejudice through research as well as through performances of the major roles found in the operas. Mr. Eversole performed the role of Sharpless in the 2014 Castleton Festival production of Madama Butterfly (music by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa), conducted by Bradley Moore. In 2015, Mr. Eversole sang the title role in four performances of Mozart and Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni with the Maryland Opera Studio at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, conducted by Craig Kier. Also as part of the Maryland Opera Studio 2015-16 season, Mr. Eversole appeared as Oscar Hubbard in four performances of Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play, The Little Foxes. These performances were also conducted by Craig Kier. The accompanying research document discusses significant issues of cultural, geographical, and sexual hegemony as they relate to each opera. It examines the plots and characters of the operas from a postcolonial and feminist perspective, and takes a moral stance against imperialism, sexism, domestic abuse, and in general, the exploitation of women and of the colonized by the socially privileged and powerful. Recordings of all three operas can be accessed at the University of Maryland Hornbake Library. They are: Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (the role of Sharpless) July 20, 2014, Castleton Festival production, Bradley Moore, Conductor Castleton, Virginia Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni (title role) November 22nd, 2015, Maryland Opera Studio, Craig Kier, Conductor Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, UMD Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, (Oscar Hubbard) April 8th, 8016, Maryland Opera Studio, Craig Kier, Conductor Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, UMD

Screening Diversity: Women & Work in Twenty-First-Century Popular Culture

Screening Diversity: Women and Work in Twenty-first Century Popular Culture explores contemporary representations of diverse professional women on screen. Audiences are offered successful women with limited concerns for feminism, anti-racism, or economic justice. I introduce the term viewsers to describe a group of movie and television viewers in the context of the online review platform Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. Screening Diversity follows their engagement in a representative sample of professional women on film and television produced between 2007 and 2015. The sample includes the television shows, Scandal, Homeland, VEEP, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Wife, as well as the movies, Zero Dark Thirty, The Proposal, The Heat, The Other Woman, I Don’t Know How She Does It, and Temptation. Viewsers appreciated female characters like Olivia (Scandal), and Maya (Zero Dark Thiry) who treated their work as a quasi-religious moral imperative. Producers and viewsers shared the belief that unlimited time commitment and personal identification were vital components of professionalism. However, powerful women, like The Proposal’s Margaret and VEEP’s Selina, were often called bitches. Some viewsers embraced bitch-positive politics in recognition of the struggles of women in power. Women’s disproportionate responsibility for reproductive labor, often compromises their ability to live up to moral standards of work. Unlike producers, viewsers celebrated and valued that labor. However, texts that included serious consideration of women as workers were frequently labelled chick flicks or soap operas. The label suggested that women’s labor issues were not important enough that they could be a topic of quality television or prestigious film, which bolstered the idea that workplace equality for women is not a problem in which the general public is implicated. Emerging discussions of racial injustice on television offered hope that these formations are beginning to shift.

O impacto das telenovelas brasileiras nos luandenses

Vivemos uma era em que os distintos pontos geográficos do globo se tornaram mais próximos em virtude do estreitamento proporcionado pelo profundo avanço tecnológico dos meios de transporte, mas também pela evolução vertiginosa das novas tecnologias de comunicação que têm permitido fazer com que eventos ocorridos numa determinada região do planeta sejam vistos num outro ponto geográfico, com diferença de apenas algumas horas ou mesmo em tempo real. Graças a esse avanço tecnológico e ao consequente desenvolvimento do processo comercial de transmissão e receção de sinal de televisão por satélite e/ou por cabo, a par do veloz fluxo de informação, são também disponibilizados aos recetores conteúdos de entretenimento que refletem práticas culturais com características marcadamente identitárias, de outras sociedades. Considerando que determinadas condicionantes históricas e económicas do mundo não possibilitam um fluxo bidirecional dos referidos produtos televisivos e o facto de as empresas prestadoras destes serviços se dedicarem exclusivamente à venda de produtos, cujos conteúdos retratam práticas culturais de determinados países (em melhores condições de desenvolvimento económico e tecnológico) existe a possibilidade de se estar diante de um processo de difusão cultural e de aculturação de que são alvo os cidadãos dos países recetores dos referidos conteúdos. Este trabalho pretende efetuar uma análise do impacto das telenovelas brasileiras no comportamento dos luandenses, baseando-se numa pesquisa desenvolvida nos sete municípios da Província de Luanda. Os resultados da pesquisa revelam a presença de componentes culturais brasileiras em práticas sociais dos luandenses há várias gerações e mostram o papel transformador que as telenovelas brasileiras continuam a desempenhar nesta sociedade. A ausência nos canais de televisão locais de mensagens e imagens das representações endógenas favorece a apropriação de práticas culturais exógenas emitidas pelas produções brasileiras e a sua ressignificação no quotidiano local.

A ideologia da encenação: uma análise dos aspectos cênico/ideológicos da encenação produzida pela indústria cultural

The research that led to this dissertation adopted a set of scenic/ideological aspects inherent to the productions of the Culture Industry as its object of research. The intellectual output of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer underscored the approaches on this subject, since it provides the same set of scenic/ideological features to be explored because, according to the authors, scenes produced by the culture industry are linked to the dominant ideology, since they act in favor of maintaining the status quo. The first objective was the definition this set of features inherent to the scene produced by the culture industry, through the exploration of literature produced by Adorno and Horkheimer, so it was possible to define a set composed of nine elements: Construction of characters as characteristic types; Stereotypes; Naturalization of Stereotyped language; Simplistic playwriting; Reuse dramatic formula; Love and sexuality as themes of plots; Utilization of tragic element; Objetive representation; Approximation of fiction and reality. The second goal was the analysis of scene produced by the culture industry nowadays, so that it was possible to verify if any scenic/ideological aspects indicated by Adorno and Horkheimer in the mid-twentieth century were present among the productions from this beginning of the twenty-first century. Through the analysis of three soap operas produced in Brazil in 2012, it was found that the nine scenic/ideological aspects as indicated by Adorno and Horkheimer appeared in the observed productions. Additionally, a new scenic/ideological feature, not indicated by Adorno and Horkheimer is present: the merchandising

Estudo e análise técnica e interpretativa do papel principal de tenor nas óperas Lucia di Lammermoor (Edgardo) e L' Elisir d' Amore (Nemorino) de Gaetano Donizetti

Nesta dissertação pretendemos analisar a interpretação do papel do tenor nas óperas Lucia di Lammermoor e L´Elisir d´Amore de Gaetano Donizetti, estudando os principais fatores que influenciaram a interpretação do papel do tenor e como esta mudou ao longo dos anos, por comparação de gravações destas óperas com 50 anos de intervalo entre si. O período do bel canto está associado à linha de canto ornamentada para exprimir emoções, o que, em conjunto com outros aspetos, fez com que a voz de tenor passasse a ter uma emissão distinta, especialmente no registo agudo. O contexto histórico e musical desta época, bem como os desenvolvimentos técnicos que se verificaram, influenciaram a forma de cantar e introduziram o tenor como papel principal nas óperas, com todos os desafios de cantar na zona de passagem, de domínio da respiração e de respeito pelas diversas formas de expressão musical que os compositores do período do bel canto usavam como veículos de interpretação e expressão dos sentimentos. A escolha destas duas óperas de Donizetti assenta num gosto pessoal e no meu interesse em estudar os contrastes dos personagens Edgardo e Nemorino, que são apresentados nesta dissertação sob o ponto de vista interpretativo, analisando a problemática de cada papel e a forma como o percurso tonal destas obras influencia as performances dos intérpretes; Abstract: STUDY AND ANALYSIS TECHNICAL-INTERPRETATION OF THE LEADING ROLE OF THE TENOR IN THE OPERAS LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR (EDGARDO) AND L´ELISIR D´AMORE (NEMORINO) OF GAETANO DONIZETTI In this dissertation we analyze the interpretation of the tenor role in the operas Lucia di Lammermoor and L´Elisir d´Amore by Gaetano Donizetti, studying the major factors that influenced the tenor role interpretation and how it developed along the years, by comparing two recordings of these operas recorded 50 years apart from each other. The period of the bel canto is associated with the vocal ornamentation to express emotions which, as a consequence and together with other aspects, required technical changes to the tenor voice, in particular the high register. The historic and musical context of this time, as well as the technical developments that happened then, influenced the way of singing and introduced the tenor as the main role in operas, with all the challenges to sing in the passagio, to master the breathing process and to use all the forms of musical expression that the bel canto composers used as vehicles to interpret and express feelings. The choice of these two operas by Donizetti is based on personal taste and also on the interpretative contrasts between the roles of Edgardo and Nemorino, studied in this dissertation in terms of their interpretation, their problematic and how the harmony of these operas influences the interpretation of the singers.