Singing actors and dancing singers: Oscillations of genre, physical and vocal codes in two contemporary adaptations of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas

Abstract

Post-print version of article. © Intellect, 2007.This article looks at two recent and widely recognized productions of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (by choreographer Sasha Waltz, Berlin 2005, and theatre-director Sebastian Nübling, Basel 2006) and discusses three main aspects: 1. Genre: coming from a Tanztheater (Waltz) and a Sprechtheater (Nübling) background, each director renegotiates conventions of the operatic genre, and consciously evades expectations in pursuit of a new and challenging experience for both the performers and their audience. 2. Physicality: both productions place the performers’ bodies at the forefront of the mise-en-scène – they remap the singing, dancing, acting body by questioning conventions and expectations commonly found in the production and reception process. 3. Adaptation: both productions take unconventional liberties by adapting in a domain where notions of Werktreue (fidelity to the original work or score) still reign. Adopting ideas from Nicholas Cook and Mikhail Bakhtin, I will argue that the conceptual, musical and theatrical implications of both productions indicate a renegotiation of the social and performative relevance of operatic performance