Lecture at the Extended Opera Symposium, University College of Opera and Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm

1. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
Opera and Technology Stockholm, 31/05/2013 1 of 18
Opera and Technology:
Yesterday and (maybe) Tomorrow
(v.7 2014-02-04)
Nicola Bernardini
nicb@sme-ccppd.org
Conservatorio di Musica “C.Pollini” – Padova
Extended Opera Symposium – University College of Opera and
Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm
Copyright c 2013 Nicola Bernardini <nicb@sme-ccppd.org>
This work comes under the terms of the
Creative Commons c BY-SA 2.5 license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)

2. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
Opera and Technology Stockholm, 31/05/2013 2 of 18
Yesterday. . . (1)
A list of “sort–of–opera” works I have contributed to
Some qualify technically as “operas”, some do not
All these works have some dramaturgy aspect
All are extended through digital technology
I have very rarely worked alone: most (if not all) these
premi`eres have been accomplished in collaboration with
Alvise Vidolin and many other people

3. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
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Yesterday. . . (2)
Claudio Ambrosini
Il Giudizio Universale (1996, XXIX Festival
delle Nazioni, Citt`a di Castello)
Giorgio Battistelli
The Cenci (1997, Almeida Opera, London)

4. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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Yesterday. . . (3)
Luciano Berio
Ofan`ım (1988, Museo di Arte
Contemporanea, Prato)
Za¨ıde (Mozart–Berio, 1995, Maggio Musicale
Fiorentino, Teatro della Pergola, Firenze)
Outis (1996, Teatro alla Scala, Milano)

5. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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Yesterday. . . (4)
Adriano Guarnieri
Orfeo cantando. . . tolse (1994, XIX Cantiere
Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, Montepulciano)
Quare Tristis (1995, 46. Festival internazionale di Musica
Contemporanea, La Biennale di Venezia, Chiesa di
S.Stefano, Venezia)
Pensieri Canuti (1999, Salzburger Festspiele, Mozarteum,
Salzburg)
Passione secondo Matteo (2000, Commission of the
Teatro alla Scala, Basilica di San Marco, Milano))
Medea (2002, Commission of the Teatro La Fenice,
Palafenice, Venezia)
La Terra del Tramonto (2004, RAI NuovaMusica,
Auditorium “G.Agnelli” Lingotto, Torino)
Pietra di Diaspro (2005, RavennaFestival–Teatro
dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro Nazionale, Roma)

6. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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Yesterday. . . (5)
Salvatore Sciarrino
Noms des Airs (1994, XIX Cantiere
Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano,
Montepulciano)
Marco Stroppa
. . . 1995. . . 2995. . . 3695. . . (1995, 46.
Festival internazionale di Musica
Contemporanea, La Biennale di Venezia)

7. Yesterday
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Other Domains
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Yesterday. . . (6)
1988 1989 1990 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Berio
Ofanim
Guarnieri
Orfeo
Sciarrino
Noms des Airs
Stroppa
...1995...2995...3695...
Guarnieri
Quare Tristis
Mozart-Berio
Zaide
Berio
Outis
Battistelli
The Cenci
Guarnieri
Pensieri Canuti
Guarnieri
Passione
Ambrosini
Giudizio
Guarnieri
Medea
Guarnieri
Terra del Tramonto
Guarnieri
Pietra di Diaspro
2008 2013
......
1988
Ber
Ofa

8. Yesterday
Lessons learned
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Other (related) achievements
DAFx (Digital Audio Effects) Action (COST G6)
(1998–2002)
ConGAS (Gesture Controlled Audio Systems) Action
(COST 287) (2003–2007)
The S2S2 (Sound to Sense, Sense To Sound)
Roadmap (EC coordination action, with partners
CSC Padova, DIST Genova, ENS Paris, IPEM
Ghent, KTH Stockholm, LEAD Lyon, MIU-FT
Firenze, ŒFAI Wien, TKK Helsinki, UPF-MTG
Barcelona, VIPS Verona) (2003–2007)
SID (Sonic Interaction Design) Action (COST
IC0601) (2007–2011)

9. Yesterday
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Other Domains
Tomorrow
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This was the past
Society was driven by the two–blocks syndrome
We were all urged to excellence
Industrial r´ecits were all still in force (progress, technology,
freedom, democracy, peace, etc.)
Art was encouraged to be functional to these r´ecits

10. Yesterday
Lessons learned
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Tomorrow
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Today is different
The cold war has been replaced by hot terrorism
the industrial society has been replaced by the information
society
energy has lost its supremacy: noise is now the main
source of pollution
people do not move much faster, but they can virtually be
all over the world at once
time is ever more fragmented
the requirement of excellence in art is becoming less and
less stringent

11. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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Lessons learned (1)
most obvious:
brand new prototyping state–of–the–art “lab” research can
hardly be used in large opera works ⇒ not robust enough
less obvious:
extremely simple technology can be outrageously effective
in music (and more so in opera)
HOWEVER:
it must have some characteristics ⇒ has to be strong,
reliable, performed

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Tomorrow
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Lessons learned (2)
a crucial point: technology is not a problem any longer
the real problem with opera is logistics
opera houses are made for melodrama and grand op´era
melodrama and grand op´era require an enormous amount
of technology (and logistics), but that is not current
technology
we can have all the music labs we care to have, but if
opera houses are unable to be music labs themselves,
creating extended operas will always be a problem

13. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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Examples in other domains: entertainment
when confronted with the idea of creating amusement
parks
Walt Disney invested in creating WED – later known as
Disney Imagineering
Disney Imagineering is substantially a research lab
catering the needs of entertainment in a specific field:
cartoons and amusement parks
also George Lucas created Lucasfilm (and later
LucasArts), research labs for film making and console
games – though later and less successful than Disney
Disney’s success was born out of cartoons! All of this was
done in less than a century!

14. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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Opera Labs
“entertainment” is not the sole function of opera
a (very) important function is aesthetic and intellectual
speculation
“opera labs” cannot follow the Disney example
they must be
a hub for many fields
ranging from science to humanities
e.g. from non–linear narrative techniques to affective
computing (and back)
research and production (and teaching) must co–exist
under the same roof . . .
. . . and this is a very hard task to accomplish

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Why this should happen
Opera is perhaps the most complete multi–media and
cross–modal performance art
It has existed for centuries, and
it has changed with the changes of society (which it
contributed to change)
it was able (in the past) to address all social classes at
different levels
why should we give it up?

16. Yesterday
Lessons learned
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An example
The SDCS (SaMPL for spreading Scientific Culture)
project

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What would it take to make this step?
Opera houses should create their internal research labs. . .
. . . possibly in collaboration with academic institutions
These labs should not be “usual” research labs but rather
think–tanks of creative people
they should promote new repertoire works
they should document it in the first place

18. Yesterday
Lessons learned
Other Domains
Tomorrow
Maybe
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THANK YOU.