TV Opera – Idomeneo

TV Opera – Idomeneo
Aldeburgh Residency TV Opera experiments  

Aldeburgh Music 2012
Supporting a research project for Tim at CROMT, Music Dept., University of Sussex

Direction, concept

Performers:
Thomas Walker
Hannah Hipp
Anita Watson
Catherine May

4 singers with cameras conveying their story using only what the camera can see.

A proof-of-concept project exploring how to translate opera performance for screen audiences,
by making a screen outcome that was a function of performance rather than a report of one.

(An alternative to the two dominant traditions of approach –
1 the reportage mode, as see on TV or cinecasts, where the grammar of the stage event can be very hard to translate.
2 And the naturalistic narrative film approach, where there is no acknowledgement that a performance as such is taking place.)

Our material was the Quartet from Mozart’s Idomeneo