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Thursday, September 06, 2018
Interview With Opera Director Rodula Gaitanou: “The Culinary Traditions Give Me A Great Insight Into A Nation’s Taste For Hospitality”
The Theatre Times: The Greek-born opera director Rodula Gaitanou has made a name for herself internationally. She is currently in Denmark showing Donizetti’s tragedy Lucia Di Lammermoor at Opera Hedeland. ISCENE’s editor Rie Hammer met the director for a talk about cultural characteristics, inspiration, the woman Lucia, and the challenges of opera today.
3 comments:
Elizabeth P
said...
Having worked the last couple of years primarily in opera, I've found that my appreciation for it comes from the high standard of artistic meaning, and the exposure to new languages. I've also found that opera comes in all forms and isn't meant for just one type of person. I think that Gaitanou brings up an interesting point, that in opera, "Spontaneity was a key part of the whole experience and highly encouraged." Now the connotations that come along with opera are that everyone must be silent and still, and only rich people can go. I like that directors like Rodula Gaitanou, are, in a way, trying to make opera less scary. For the non-opera goer there is much to be taken from the opera. For instance, part of the spirit of opera is how international it is. Singers from all over the globe, basically go "show hopping" from theater to theater, perhaps singing in Milan one night and Santa Fe the next. The stories themselves are representative of the world as a whole. Composers from all backgrounds and languages are seen in countries that perhaps the composer didn't even know about, and I think that that is incredibly interesting.
While I have made and will surely continue to make active efforts to explore the different worlds of theatre in its many outlets for experimentation, I admittedly have deliberately limited experience with opera. Gaitanou says that one of the biggest challenges with opera today is the stiffness of the nature of the event in people’s minds, and how to go about combating that with spontaneity and freshness. After the presentations in Basic Design last week, I realized that there are many opera companies in Pittsburgh and beyond trying to pull this genre into modern times. It’s refreshing to hear that an opera director such as Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the mixing and introduction of new cultures, site-specific works, and bringing a feeling of newness to an age old genre. I hope to explore more opera in the upcoming years to track this development in the industry and come to appreciate a part of theatre I previously neglected.
While I have made and will surely continue to make active efforts to explore the different worlds of theatre in its many outlets for experimentation, I admittedly have deliberately limited experience with opera. Gaitanou says that one of the biggest challenges with opera today is the stiffness of the nature of the event in people’s minds, and how to go about combating that with spontaneity and freshness. After the presentations in Basic Design last week, I realized that there are many opera companies in Pittsburgh and beyond trying to pull this genre into modern times. It’s refreshing to hear that an opera director such as Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the mixing and introduction of new cultures, site-specific works, and bringing a feeling of newness to an age old genre. I hope to explore more opera in the upcoming years to track this development in the industry and come to appreciate a part of theatre I previously neglected.
3 comments:
Having worked the last couple of years primarily in opera, I've found that my appreciation for it comes from the high standard of artistic meaning, and the exposure to new languages. I've also found that opera comes in all forms and isn't meant for just one type of person. I think that Gaitanou brings up an interesting point, that in opera, "Spontaneity was a key part of the whole experience and highly encouraged." Now the connotations that come along with opera are that everyone must be silent and still, and only rich people can go. I like that directors like Rodula Gaitanou, are, in a way, trying to make opera less scary. For the non-opera goer there is much to be taken from the opera. For instance, part of the spirit of opera is how international it is. Singers from all over the globe, basically go "show hopping" from theater to theater, perhaps singing in Milan one night and Santa Fe the next. The stories themselves are representative of the world as a whole. Composers from all backgrounds and languages are seen in countries that perhaps the composer didn't even know about, and I think that that is incredibly interesting.
While I have made and will surely continue to make active efforts to explore the different worlds of theatre in its many outlets for experimentation, I admittedly have deliberately limited experience with opera. Gaitanou says that one of the biggest challenges with opera today is the stiffness of the nature of the event in people’s minds, and how to go about combating that with spontaneity and freshness. After the presentations in Basic Design last week, I realized that there are many opera companies in Pittsburgh and beyond trying to pull this genre into modern times. It’s refreshing to hear that an opera director such as Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the mixing and introduction of new cultures, site-specific works, and bringing a feeling of newness to an age old genre. I hope to explore more opera in the upcoming years to track this development in the industry and come to appreciate a part of theatre I previously neglected.
While I have made and will surely continue to make active efforts to explore the different worlds of theatre in its many outlets for experimentation, I admittedly have deliberately limited experience with opera. Gaitanou says that one of the biggest challenges with opera today is the stiffness of the nature of the event in people’s minds, and how to go about combating that with spontaneity and freshness. After the presentations in Basic Design last week, I realized that there are many opera companies in Pittsburgh and beyond trying to pull this genre into modern times. It’s refreshing to hear that an opera director such as Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the mixing and introduction of new cultures, site-specific works, and bringing a feeling of newness to an age old genre. I hope to explore more opera in the upcoming years to track this development in the industry and come to appreciate a part of theatre I previously neglected.
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