ABSTRACT
This article addresses the problem of acting in opera by reconsidering the singer not merely as a vocal performer, but as a stage interpreter whose presence is shaped by the interplay of body, gesture, music, and dramaturgy. Starting from the persistence of conventional gesture in operatic tradition, the essay argues that such codified forms should not be read simply as obsolete conventions, since they historically responded to concrete technical and scenic needs. At the same time, contemporary opera staging increasingly demands from singers a more continuous and self-aware mode of performance, one no longer reducible to a repertory of inherited signs. The article therefore proposes to read recent developments in operatic acting as a passage from conventional gesture to stage presence, understood not in naturalistic terms, but as the capacity to make musical action visible, relational, and dramatically meaningful. Drawing on theoretical contributions from acting studies and performance studies, the essay examines the singer’s acting as a specific and constrained form of behaviour, rooted in the score and inseparable from vocal technique. Special attention is devoted to the role of rehearsal practices, acting pedagogy, and the growing impact of mediated vision, especially in the age of HD and 4K recording, which has profoundly altered the perceptual scale of operatic performance. The article suggests, in conclusion, that the central question is not whether opera singers should act, but how scenic action can arise from within the musical and vocal logic of opera itself
BIOGRAFIA
Alberto Bentoglio è Professore Ordinario di Storia del teatro e dello spettacolo all’Università degli Studi di Milano. Tra le sue principali opere: L'arte del capocomico: biografia critica di Salvatore Fabbrichesi (Roma, Bulzoni, 1994); Antonio Colomberti, Memorie di un artista drammatico (Roma, Bulzoni, 2004); Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore di Pirandello per Giorgio De Lullo (Pisa, ETS, 2007); Antonio Colomberti, Dizionario biografico degli attori italiani (Roma, Bulzoni, 2009); Milano, città dello spettacolo (Milano, Unicopli, 2014); 20 lezioni su Giorgio Strehler (Imola, Cue Press, 2020). Maria Callas (Roma, Carocci, 2023).
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