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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Bellini’s Norma and the Challenge of Regieoper
Author(s)
Ephraim David
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2023.07.001
Affiliation(s)
University of Haifa, Israel
ABSTRACT
Despite the universal messages of Bellini’s Norma, the attempts at translating and adapting it to a modern context in the revisionist spirit of Regieoper (the director’s opera) encounter serious difficulties, as indicated by recent productions. The present paper focuses on these difficulties by examining in detail what appear to be the most challenging, innovative and thought-provoking among those productions which, despite remarkable merits, suffer from acute shortcomings: inter alia certain incompatibilities with the libretto, cultural dissonances, and problems of inner-coherence and verisimilitude. The detailed analysis of specific productions is followed by a general discussion (through a comparative approach) of Norma’s adaptability to Regieoper, which is shown to be extremely difficult, among other reasons because the terms of reference to the dimensions of the historical context (and the inherent mores) in its libretto are by far less flexible than those of other operas. Norma’s universal messages and its dualities of “foreign” versus “familiar,” with their vast semantic ambit, would seem to be better understood by meticulously delving into the subtleties of the text (and subtext) of Romani’s sophisticated libretto. Inner-coherence and compatibility with the libretto are essential for any attempt at creating an appropriate analogy running parallel to the original narrative. A fully convincing production of Norma in a modernizing spirit, if at all possible, remains an artistic challenge.
KEYWORDS
Director’s opera, faithfulness to the original, adaptability, inner coherence
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