M. Kosilkin

The problems of the analysis of the stage text in the production of the opera

The study of opera stage versions cannot be limited with the analysis con-formably to some interpretations of the vocal parts and orchestral score. Opera performance is a result of singers’, actors’, conductor’s, director’s, stage designer`s and other participants’ co-authorship. The author of the article considers a complex set of an opera performance in a semiotic projection as a certain kind of a specific text, consisting of variable, but clearly readable signs. For the realization of appropriate analytical procedure there is applied a conventional concept «stage text». Moreover, «signs» of this text are differentiated as intonation-plastic and figurative ones. The researcher analyses the colours of the opera-stage costumes which are considered as a sign and magic symbols in a series of the Carmen’s role performers; their portraits made by French and Russian painters in the XIX–XXth centuries are used for that. «Carmen» by G. Bizet is also characterized in the process of analysis in conformity with the multi-level signs of the stage text: the question is some productions dated the second half of the XXth century. These are the performances of the Bolshoi Theatre (1956), The Vienna State Opera (1967), the film by F. Rosi (1983), the production of the Metropolitan Opera (1989) and others. The mentioned interpretations of Carmen and José images beget analogies and parallels with cultivated in society types of the actual historical heroes.

Key words

opera production, analysis of the stage interpretation of an opera, stage text, «Carmen» by G. Bizet, stage costume as a sign, the intonation-plastic and figurative opera signs.

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