Audience's Desire Research Articles

The Technical Communicator as Artist: Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and Form in the Workplace

Purpose: This article describes how the specialized, rhetorical aesthetic theory of form, posited by Kenneth Burke, highlights humanistic and artistic elements of technical communication exemplified in the technical workplace. A specialized way of understanding how types of communication build relationships between author and audience, the theory of form offers a unique way to contextualize how an artist-rhetor creates and fulfills audience desires, expectations, and appetites. Method: The authors first contextualize technical communication as a field of artistic and creative practice; they then expand that context using Burke???s rhetorical aesthetic theory of form as a framework for application and examine that application in the context of the technical workplace, using a self-reported case study from industry as an example. Results: The rhetorical aesthetic theory of form provides a way of rethinking technical communication practice, emphasizing the humanistic and artistic elements of technical communication in the workplace. Conclusion: Looking at technical communication with an interrelated view of rhetoric and aesthetics can provide scholars, teachers, and practitioners with new insights for how technical communicators can see themselves and their audiences as complex people who have the capacities for arguing, influencing, and persuading–and also with capacities for drama, story, feeling, creating, and being moved by art.

Inclusive Media Mix

A Silent Voice (Koe no katachi, dir. Yamada Naoko, 2016) is an anime film based on the critically acclaimed manga of the same name by Ôima Yoshitoki. A Silent Voice follows the experiences of a deaf character, Nishimiya Shôko, and her classmates, particularly as they deal with school bullying and rebuilding friendships afterwards. A Silent Voice not only won various awards such as Best Animated Feature Film at the Japanese Movie Critics Award, but also collaborated with actors across the public sector such as schools, local governments, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), to enhance inclusive education in Japan. This article shifts the typical focus on media mix as a marketing strategy to consider media mix strategies as potential tools for civic and educational causes. Specifically, it explores A Silent Voice’s media mix in relation to improving inclusivity in Japanese education and society. To that end, this project begins with a brief elucidation of the three versions of the original manga, which serve as starting points of this inclusivity-focused media mix. The project then moves to analysis of how the anime problematizes school bullying as systemic exclusion and explores how sign language is presented as one key to forming an inclusive society. Finally, by introducing cases in which collaboration with the public sector distributes this anime’s characters, induces various audience desires, and mobilizes audiences to participate in social change, I argue that A Silent Voice provides an example of inclusive media mix.

From private pleasure to erotic spectacle: Adapting Bridgerton to female audience desires

In this article, we look at how medium and genre shaped the Netflix adaptation of the first two Bridgerton novels and mediated the depictions of sex and desire to fit medium-specific expectations surrounding sexual content made for women. The showrunners for Netflix’s Bridgerton (2020–present) articulated a desire to depict sex from a female perspective, and with a ‘female gaze’, but the series is also instrumental in defining that perspective in ways that often differ from the approach of the novels’ female author. The contrast between the original and the adaptation reveals social norms and beliefs about content that excites women as well as stark differences in print and television norms. In attempting to use a female gaze, the adaptation also constructs the female gaze as distinctly separate from what is depicted in the novels and as limited to specific forms of ‘looking’. We first explore how this is implicated in choices that were made about the adaptation of violent or aggressive sex for the show. Bridgerton avoids depictions of aggression present in the novel and falls back on traditional depictions of appropriate feminine desire. Secondarily, we discuss depictions of sexual consent in the novel and the series with a particular emphasis on the implications colour-blind-casting has for the depiction of violations of consent.

Reading will not find you a husband: Eloise Bridgerton, accomplishment and the ‘thinking woman’ in the early nineteenth-century period drama

From the very opening scenes of Bridgerton (), Eloise Bridgerton, the second-eldest daughter, takes centre stage as a character entrenched in a Regency London world, yet immediately identifiable to a modern audience. Her desire to learn and live beyond a conventional path sets her apart in a way that provides hope to a viewing audience that desires from her a myriad of things, including the intertwining of her reticence to marry, her close friendship with Penelope Featherington and intellectual aspirations with longed-for queer representation. This article will explore how the building of Eloise’s character allows for the exploration of the gendering of intellectual freedom on-screen at a place where fact, fiction and audience desires meet. In examining the translation of the complicated nature of the ‘thinking woman’ and ‘accomplishment’ onto screen through the lens of Eloise, and the references and language used, in particular those to Wollstonecraft, as well as audience responses to and desires for Eloise, this article will demonstrate how a conflation of historical reference and modern outlook both re-energizes and often polarizes feminist tropes of the scholarly woman.

Performance Space and Stage Technologies: A Comparative Perspective on Theatre History ed. by Nawata Yuji and Hans Joachim Dethlefs

Reviewed by: Performance Space and Stage Technologies: A Comparative Perspective on Theatre History ed. by Nawata Yuji and Hans Joachim Dethlefs Pascale Aebischer (bio) Performance Space and Stage Technologies: A Comparative Perspective on Theatre History Edited by Nawata Yuji and Hans Joachim Dethlefs. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2022. Pp. 176. Nawata Yuji and Hans Joachim Dethlefs's edited collection arises from "Towards a Global History of Culture," a research project based at Chuo University in Tokyo. In March 2020, the project was forced to pivot from in-person exchanges at a symposium to the alternative format of this volume. Consequently, until the final chapter in which Nawata seeks to offer categorizations and sketch out the global circulation of "cultural techniques," the book offers a starting point for comparison rather than an overarching comparative argument. As someone trained in early modern studies, I found Ishida Yuichi's analysis of the role of central perspective in Catholic churches (with a focus on Italy) particularly illuminating: the discussion of altar pieces and how they related to theatrical set designs and the creation of a "theatrum sacrum" as a place for seeing God's miracles struck me as an important context for understanding the connection between spiritual values and perspectival set designs in secular performance spaces. This was also one of the few chapters that seemed to pick up implicitly, if not explicitly, on another contribution to the volume: preceded, as it is, by Dethlefs's chapter on the early modern German reception of Vitruvius's and Serlio's architectural tracts regarding theatre design, Ishida's argument seemed to offer a possible answer to why Walter Hermann Ryff (the subject of Dethlefs's contribution) was so suspicious of perspectival design in the theatre. That comparative connection, however, is never actually articulated within the volume and it is the reader who has to do the work of joining the dots. Other chapters open up windows into fields, periods, and cultures with which I had little prior acquaintance: Seo Tatsuiko's essay on the theatrical elements of a Chinese novel, The Tale of Li Wa, set in Tang dynasty (ninth century) Chang'an, intricately maps the urban landscape of the novel before, in a surprise twist, suggesting that there is a global "four quadrant structure of love drama" that is "universal." Mitsuma Yasuyuki's consideration of semicircular theatre in ancient Babylon springs a similar surprise in the sudden turn from a scene analysis of the presentation of Crassus's head to the reading out of letters. However, there is little in this chapter to link it either to stage technologies or the semicircularity of the theatre advertised in the title. Three chapters focused on entertainment culture leading up to and around the turn of the twentieth century are connected by little more than rough simultaneity: Hioki Takayuki's investigation of stage machinery and special effects in Kabuki theatre is fascinating in the detailed insight it affords [End Page 588] into the staging of historical shipwrecks. It is worlds apart from Itoda Soichiro's investigation of the legislation that changed what could be defined as "theatre" in Berlin between 1870 and 1890 and, consequently, the expansion and subsequent decline of the theatre industry in the German capital. The section closes with Enomoto Yosuko's exploration of the Lyceum Theatre in Shanghai and its role in "expressing to the Chinese what Western art was" (p. 125). The book's final section contains two essays alongside Nawata's conclusion. Ito Masaru's essay on the Leningrad School's approach to theatre spaces is concerned exclusively with the theoretical writing in the 1920s of A. Gvozdev, the head of the Department of Theatre History at the Institute of Art History in Leningrad. Kai Van Eikels's discussion of projection technology stretches from Piscator via Peter Brook to the more recent work of Robert Lepage, the Japanese collective Dumb Type, and Frank Castorf's staging of Erniedrigte und Beleidigte in 2001, in which video projections of actors who remained inaccessible to the audience frustrated the audience's desire to see the actors' "laboring-for-the-audience" (p. 155). The book thus offers an eclectic selection of essays that offer valuable insights into...

The Final Word on sports podcasts: Audience perceptions of media engagement and news consumption

Sports podcasting has spread rapidly over the past decade and reflects how sports media have been quick to embrace new technologies. Despite being a relatively recent medium, podcasts have expanded the sports field with their format and content. The rise in podcast shows and episodes has been noticeable, but less is known, particularly in an academic context, about the audience's desire for sports news and information. Utilising the audience of The Final Word, a global podcast focusing on cricket, this study will examine perceptions of media engagement and news consumption through a survey of 333 listeners. The Final Word is a popular podcast that has gained critical acclaim for its content and format, and is hosted by two cricket writers, who are based in Australia and the United Kingdom. The findings provide important global insights and descriptive results of the habits and perceptions of listeners in relation to media engagement and news consumption of a journalistic podcast

Challenges and Prospect of Museum Institutions in the 21st Century in Northern Nigeria

The museum is one institution that accommodates every aspect of human activities and reminds people of their past to present. Most museum collections have been sustained by preserving and documenting natural and cultural heritage. Museum itself serve as an institution of learning, research has been conducted, and entertain different people with diverse cultural background without discrimination. Today, in Northern Nigeria, most people perceived museums as a place of fetish collections are stored rather than a multifunctional institution that deals with many sectors of life. Museums have the capacity to reflect both continuity and change, to preserve and protect cultural and natural heritage while illustrating the expression of the human imagination and the natural world through the exhibition. Museum in the 21st century has completely transformed due to the advancement of science and technology. But, Northern Nigeria is left behind in such technological development. The paper utilized the qualitative method to enable the researcher to explore the challenges and prospects of museum institutions in Northern Nigeria. This paper used primary and secondary methods of data collection. The paper's objective is to explore the significance and identify the role of science and technology in museums and the challenges and prospects. The paper finds that museums are an integral part of the human experience that transformed as time went on. Many museums have centralized collections and exhibition across the globe. But, museums in Northern Nigeria faces a considerable challenge, and the prospect of the institutions is at stake. The paper recommends that museums should explore other avenues to capture audience desire in line with global base practice.

Audience Expectations of Advertising during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Evidence from an Approach–Avoidance Theory Study in Ghana

Covid-19 (an acronym for the coronavirus disease of 2019) has revised how businesses the world over act, including how they engage their targets. As audiences battle the barrage of Covid-19 information already fighting for their attention, the boundaries of the already complex task of catching and retaining their attention is being re-defined. A cursory observation would show that, during the pandemic, brand advertising has evolved. Promotional messages deployed during the pandemic, particularly at its onset and during peak times, often include references to the pandemic either by way of providing education or solidarising with consumers. How well is this strategy in advertising messaging fitted to audience desires and to what extent does it dis/encourage audience engagement? This article reports on a study that was informed by approach–avoidance theory and explored audience expectations of and responses to advertising messages during the Covid-19 pandemic. Survey data from a sample of advertising audiences in Ghana served as the basis of the exploration. It found that the audience deemed it appropriate for brands to include pandemic information in their advertising and were unreceptive to advertisements (hereafter ads) that have a self-serving (i.e. focused only on the brand) ethos. There were, however, nuances to preference levels towards different themes of pandemic message infusions. These, along with their theoretical implications are discussed in the article.

Netiquette Analysis of Youtube Content in The Covid-19 Pandemic

The rise of videos on YouTube channels which content is viral yet insensitive to the current condition of the Covid-19 pandemic shows that ethical issues in creative content are becoming serious problems. The purpose of this study is to examine the issue of netiquette during the Covid-19 pandemic in YouTube content. This research used the qualitative content analysis method. The results concluded that a prank video, which showed the distribution of groceries containing trash and stones by Ferdian Paleka and the video of Indira Kalistha, who were reluctant to follow the procedures for preventing Covid-19, had very little ethics and did not educate the public. Both YouTubers also did not realize that they had the power to influence their many followers using their content. Prank videos made mainly by content creators are considered a kind of creativity to meet the audience's desire for entertainment. Moreover, fierce competition between creators cannot be avoided; hence ethics is ruled out sometimes, and they merely intended to gain more subscribers. On the contrary, a viral video of Edward Suhadi frying eggs in the campaign aimed for people not to panic buying during the Covid-19 pandemic received many positive responses from citizens. This video also inspires people to take social action.

On the artistic function of film music based on narratology

Film is a comprehensive art. After entering the film, music broke through the space-time structure of the film, making the film a real audio-visual art with unique forms of expression. It has also become a kind of movie music combining audio and video. Become an indispensable part of film art. No music. The authenticity of the film cannot be fully expressed [1]. The role of music in movies is mainly manifested in the artistry of music itself, the rendering and contrast of music in movie narrative, and the construction of music in movie narrative. In the creation of film works, music art is one of the indispensable means to create suspense and express emotions in movies. Music with the right atmosphere and appropriate lens pictures can arouse the audience's desire to watch movies and attract the audience to watch the whole movie. Good music can not only reveal the theme of the film, but also lay the tone of the film's style. It can also help the film set the plot suspense [2].

Netflix and the design of the audience

This paper explores how audiences engage with Netflix as an intermediary in their digital lives, and how Netflix, as it is designed, creates a highly constrained system for its users. The paper is based on a study of observed use and discussions with Netflix users. It explores the limitations that are designed into Netflix as a digital media platform, and how Netflix users engage with this system that obscures rather than clarifies the contents of the platform. The paper discusses examples of frustration, confusion, and misdirection that Netflix, as a heavily constrained system, cultivates. It argues that the thoughts, feelings, and desires of audiences are not reflected in the data-driven design of digital media platforms like Netflix. Instead, data are used by Netflix to design a personalized environment that acts as a set of blinders which constrain the agency of the audience through an interface designed to dazzle and disorient Netflix users.

MOVIE-INDUCED TOURISM AS A POWERFUL TOURISM BRANDING MEDIA (Study Case on “Laskar Pelangi” The Movie)

ABSTRACTThe scarcity in natural resources encourage many countries move their focus to manage non-natural resources. Tourism sector is one of potential non-natural resource in Indonesia that needs to be maximized by appropriate media. The fact that number of tourists coming to Bangka Belitung increase until about 1.800% by “Laskar Pelangi” the movie is a good sign that movie can be a tourism branding media to increase desire of audiences to visit the place which is shown. This research examines how “Laskar Pelangi” as a movie-induced tourism can influence audience decision to visit Belitung Island using combination of quantitative and qualitative research. The result shows that Laskar Pelangi is a effective movie-induced tourism since it has both pull and push factors. Understanding this tourism strategy will allow nation to excel economy recovery in the future.Keywords: Movie, Tourism, Economics.

The 1990s on the RTS Screens: Analysis of the Domestic Television Series and the Audience Attitudes

In the cultural memory of peoples or individual groups, there is always a certain temporal point around which complex socio-political discourses develop. In Serbia, it was the 1990s. Many studies analyzed this period from different and opposite perspectives, but research on TV programs from that era has been rather neglected. This paper focuses on TV series and audience attitudes in order to determine their role in this period. The methodology is based on secondary data from previously conducted research since it is difficult to determine the audience's attitudes towards a serial program that was broadcasted in the 1990s from this temporal distance. The reports from the RTS (Radio Television of Serbia) Research Center were used, and a brief analysis of individual achievements from that period was made to define a more general picture of the television series offered. The methods used were: historical analysis, content analysis and comparative analysis, therefore, the qualitative approach dominates.
 Ideology has long been identified as an increasingly common component of popular content, so particular attention was paid in this paper to detailed analysis and „reading between the lines.“ Although at first glance it was expected that clear ideological representational matrices would be recognized in TV series broadcasted in the 1990s, our research shows that this is not the case. Detailed analysis provided answers to the newly discovered meanings of a complex and never-completed process of cultural formation within the peculiarities of everyday life in a territory that was largely isolated and at a time pressed by various phenomenological and axiological categories. That everyday life was human, lively and inevitable, and its representation in the series does not cover the semantic paradigm of the most difficult of all times in contemporary Serbian history. In a deeper reading of the attitudes and thinking of the audience, it is noticed that the perception of the socio-political crisis of the time was projected on the wishes of the audience, as it pleaded for more fun, optimism and humanity, which became part of the basic viewing preferences. More than that, viewers have expressed a need for much more love content in future recorded series, which shows a certain measure of saturation, on the one hand, and a culmination of optimism and relaxation regarding the expectations of the serial content, on the other. The audience's desires were turned toward distraction from reality, wars, sanctions and dark topics.

Women of the bohemian circles of Paris in establishment of French theatricality of “Belle Epoque”

The period of last quarter of the XIX – beginning of the XX century in France after the World War I receives a name “Belle Epoque”. It is the time of development of entertainment industry, origination of mass culture, where women play a special role. The object of this research is the life strategies of women of the bohemian circles of Paris of “Belle Epoque”. The subjects is the women in French theatricality of the late XIX – early XX century. The goal of the work consists in determining the role played by thre women with a new female life strategy in formation of the phenomenon of French theatricality of “Belle Epoque”. Methodology is based on the sociocultural approach towards the problem, and suggests detailed analysis of the rare memoires of the performers, actresses and dancers, which were not published in Russian or translated into the Russian language. It is noted that women in the bohemian circles reconsidered their strategies in achieving life goals, putting the questions of career and personal growth to the forefront. They also were able to respond to the desires of audience of the late XIX – early XX century, attracting attention to the art of dance, pantomime, theatre, bringing their personal outlook upon the manner of performing. Women performed equal to men, often superseding them in some fields of art due to their natural femininity and talent.

Girls, Autobiography, Media: Gender and Self-Mediation in Digital Economies by Emma Maguire

Reviewed by: Girls, Autobiography, Media: Gender and Self-Mediation in Digital Economies by Emma Maguire Lucy E. Bailey (bio) Girls, Autobiography, Media: Gender and Self-Mediation in Digital Economies Emma Maguire Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, xiv + 216 pp. ISBN 9783319742366, $99.99 hardcover. The dedication to Emma Maguire's Girls, Autobiography, Media: Gender and Self-Mediation in Digital Economies captures the spirit of the book's empowering central message: "to the girls and young women who, despite it all, insist on taking up space." Maguire, a lecturer at James Cook University in Australia, offers an impressive feminist analysis of girls' "automedial" practices across varied media genres in the North American context from the 1990s to the present to convey how girls use media platforms to pursue the mission of claiming space (3). Because girls inhabit a structural position with little social power and face intense ridicule of their activities and pleasures (6), they use automedial practices to explore, consume, and importantly, produce discourses of girlhood digitally to take up public space in generative ways. Girls mobilize media to "write back" (142), to produce "possible selves" (Marcus and Nurius), and to engage in "cultural imagining of girlhoods" (Maguire 5) that circulate, transmogrify, and erupt into new expressions. In analyzing girls' media practices as forms of auto/biographical expression, this text extends the field of auto/biographical studies by situating digital platforms as key sites where young women theorize, perform, and indeed, narrate their lives. Maguire's text thus aligns gracefully with the Palgrave Series mission to extend the "global reach" of life writing and "challenge and extend how life writing is understood and practiced . . . especially in a world of rapidly changing digital media." Extending the field of life writing into digital platforms parallels social changes in how people, particularly youth, write their lives. The contemporary digital landscape has unleashed an array of potential vehicles for girls' self-narration that were simply not available previously. For social media scholar danah boyd, such sites allow youth to "write themselves and their community into being" (2). Considering young women as legitimate subjects and producers of life narratives requires focusing on the outlets they use to craft their self-presentations, an area of scholarship Maguire calls "drastically under-theorized" (10). This book is thoroughly feminist in framing young women as agents and their world-making as generative. It frames girlhood as a fluid, narrated period of being, rather than reflecting a particular age range. Unsettling common assumptions of what constitutes a legitimate autobiographical text, Maguire emphasizes that girls' media use is a form of autobiographical and cultural production. She focuses on platforms in which young women are primarily authors, subjects, and owners of their media content (17). Although such technologies are by no means equal in access, use, or visibility, girls have put them to use creatively to construct girlhood and perform selves. This text is an important contribution to girlhood and autobiographical studies. The book opens by illustrating common patterns of sexist shaming inflicted on young women today to situate the importance of their agential practices in the case [End Page 496] studies that follow. The text consists of nine chapters, seven of which focus on a media platform that has emerged within the last two decades. Stretching from "camgirls" and lifecasting practices in the late 1990s, to experimental narrative work on Instagram appearing in 2014, each chapter addresses girls' automedial practices in a platform, analyzes the platform's affordances for expressions of life writing, and explores the diverse articulations of youth and femininity it supports. Cumulatively, the chapters underscore the "complex interplay between users, producers, and consumers" (4) in young women's autobiographical practices. The case analyses holistically animate varied themes that include dynamic conceptions of girlhood, circulating anxieties about youthful femininity, the importance of context and affordances in shaping the limits and possibilities of narrative, feminine embodiment, creativity, authenticity and performativity, audience desires, and the enduring possibility of surveillance and exploitation of girls. The introduction, Chapter 1, productively positions the text within a range of media, girlhood, and autobiographical issues. Drawing on Smith and Watson, Maguire embeds her analysis in a multidimensional conception of the self or "I" who narrates, and in recognition...

Plato on the Value of Philosophy: The Art of Argument in the Gorgias and Phaedrus

Plato on the Value of Philosophy: The Art of Argument in the Gorgias and Phaedrus

Analyzing the Emotional Bondage of Serial Fans and Business Decisions on Series Extension in the Context of Impact on the Stock Price of the Providers

The desire of audiences to consume content in a series format, independent of time and place has increased in recent years. Technological advancement has helped this trend progress. In this paper, series are considered as goods whose sales are linked to the degree of viewers’ attention. Thus, the good series operate on two interconnected levels, an economic and an emotional. The decision to invest in the production of another season of a series is intended to increase the number of subscriptions and the associated revenues. Capital market participants are influenced by various emotional biases when making investment decisions under uncertainty. In the context of an event study, it is examined whether announcements of season extensions have a significant influence on the share price of the respective provider. The results show that investors react with a changed investment behavior. Furthermore, findings from the film industry are transferred to series production.

THE FORMULATION OF TASTE AND VALUE IN AMERICAN ACTION-SPY MOVIES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE BOURNE SAGA

The popularity of Hollywood action movies is undisputed, especially the ones related to espionage. The movies such as the 007 series and Mission: Impossible series are best known as successful action-spy movies as they are always considered the top blockbuster movies. However, the start of the release of The Bourne movies in 2002 changed audiences’ perspectives toward the depiction of espionage as commonly shown in 007 and Mission: Impossible. Four of The Bourne movies that consist of The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), and The Bourne Legacy (2011) are used as the object of this research. Furthermore, the different depictions of espionage in The Bourne movies successfully reached the attention of action-spy audiences. Many audiences from throughout the world expressed their feelings after watching these movies on the movie review site as IMDb.com. The audiences’ responses toward the different portrait of espionage that are presented in the movies may depend on the taste of those audiences with regards to the depictions inside the movies that may present certain American values as the narrative of the movies concerns an American named Jason Bourne. There are two goals of this research. The first is to reveal whether there is any relation between audiences’ taste and the values depicted in film whether these film are products of popular culture or not. The second is to know how these movies mold the American values in their narrative to appeal to the desire of audiences. This research is conducted under the American studies discipline, especially the paradigm of transnational American Studies. Furthermore, some theories are employed as tools to analyze the object in order to achieve the goal of this research. Conducted as qualitative research, books, movies, articles, and videos related to the focus of this research are used as supporting data.Keywords: The Bourne, Audience, Taste, Value.

Restaurant acoustics—Unconducted and sometimes unintended orchestrations—An overview

The modern restaurant, such as the modern concert hall, is a societal orchestration on many levels including and involving acoustics. The restaurant overlays a business approach, diner tastes, architecture, and other socio-economic factors in superimposed circles of interaction thought to be planned but in action often unanticipated with unwitting consequences. The n-dimensional influences of restaurant acoustics have distinct parallels with the n-dimensional influences of concert hall acoustics. In a concert hall, it is not enough to have architectural beauty, a quiet background and good acoustics in the audience area if onstage acoustics do not support the musicians as individuals in an ensemble. If players must expend concentration on coping instead of elevating unhindered into their art, the quality the audience desires of the music cannot be reached. But if both onstage and audience area acoustics are good, the music soars, audiences keep coming and paying, all participants reap positive rewards, and the organization is successful and self-perpetuating. In this overview, we suggest that the influence of a restaurant’s acoustics on its success/satisfaction outcome is perhaps even more complex with more human dimensions and less known than that of the concert hall but that observing and considering these parallels may be beneficial.

MUSIC IN REVIEW

1 6 7 R M U S I C I N R E V I E W D E W E Y F A U L K N E R Once, in the late sixteenth century when it was new, opera was conceived as a modern imitation of Greek tragedy and its subject matter was classical only. Serious operas remained that way through the eighteenth century, but by the nineteenth century almost any topic could be considered suitable for an opera plot. A narrative merely had to be capable of working by means of opera’s standard forms – solo arias, ensembles, and so on. In mid-century Richard Wagner made opera truly serious again, returning it to its roots in myth but emphasizing its earnestness by jettisoning the standard forms. To Wagner, opera must now be a sung play, carried especially by the orchestral underlay of the sung text. Unfortunately, in following Wagner’s precepts composers soon forgot that their music must be interesting in itself and that how it was sung was a major part of why audiences came to opera performances. As Sir Thomas Beecham lectured to Maria Callas, the reason La Bohème has remained inordinately popular since 1896 is that it is full of ‘‘good tunes!’’ – which have had great singers performing them. The lack of both has doomed most new operas after Turandot in 1926; even Lulu (1937) did not become even somewhat popular until the 1970s. As is often bemoaned, opera today is a museum. 1 6 8 F A U L K N E R Y Even the silliness imposed upon it by Regietheater and its producers cannot undo the continuing basic desire of audiences to hear great singers, few though there be nowadays, perform music that will move them. But new operas continue to be written, and composers’ nets are being thrown ever more widely in the hope that new subject matter will save their pieces. Unsurprisingly, new operatic sources include films. New films, old films – if it has a plot and characters, composers will use it. Of course, since sung words take roughly twice as long as spoken ones, they will have to cut the film script. Likewise, they’ll probably need to reduce the number of characters , as well as the number of scenes, although modern staging and lighting techniques can get around this. More recent films, with their rapid cuts and jumps designed for the minuscule attention spans of modern younger audiences, make unsatisfactory sources, even for contemporary composers with their twitchy and irregular styles. But if carefully chosen, a film can be as good a basis for a successful opera as any other narrative. As always, the result depends on how it’s handled – and also on how it’s staged and sung. The Metropolitan Opera has staged two new operas drawn from movies, whose composers (Thomas Adès and Nico Muhly) are currently flavors of the month in England and the United States, respectively. Their film connections have provided good fodder for critics (including this one) to chew upon. To these I have added a popular composer’s new film opera that is making the rounds of smaller American houses (so far) and a fourth that is in English and based on an American movie but composed in Austria. There are others, even a Howard Shore opera based on The Fly (who knew?), but these four will su≈ce to show the variety of filmconnected work being produced and to enable us to assess (perhaps prematurely) its successes. Successes. Operas are among the most expensive artworks to produce and almost always lose money, especially at first. Only repetition makes them financially viable. So the big question here is whether audiences will clamor to hear these works again and again, with di√erent casts, conductors, and stagings to o√er new perspectives on them. All have been recorded, one way or another, so the public has a chance to make informed judgments about them. Frankly, I doubt that any of them will ever rival Bohème – or even Lulu – but odder things have happened. M U S I C I N R E V I E W 1...