Visuality of French Baroque Opera

The module is concerned with the visuality of French Baroque opera and its rendering in present-day performance practice. As such, its object is not limited to scene design, but encompasses the entire scenic realisation, including the invisible conditions of the visible. It focuses not only on what is viewed, but also on its sensory perceptions and their performative impact. French Baroque opera follows the paradigm of the spectacle inasmuch as it is conceived as a show-piece (“Schau-Stück“) and aims at the constitution and representation of power. Its practice of “aggrandizement of the eye” (Jay) is not second to that of 17th century absolutistic courts, but is rather part of their strategies of political power. At the same time, the visuality of French baroque opera results in a fundamental destabilisation of the “imperialism of the image“ ascribed to the Baroque, and presents a procedure beyond the “découpage” (Barthes) which can contribute to a decentralisation of existing orders.
The Opera module explores this thesis through an analysis of opera practices and esthetical discourses of the Ancien Régime as well as contemporary performance practice.