Log 23 (Fall 2011) includes an article by me on the Metropolitan Opera’s new, high-tech production of Wagner’s Ring cycle and the “empathetic” experience of space in modern architectural aesthetics. From the article:
Since World War II, the dominant project in experimental staging of Wagnerian opera has been a negation of empathetic engagement. Dramaturgical techniques of “literarization” help to create an aesthetic friction between visual and auditory components that intentionally precludes a corporeal sense of space. The apparent promise of Regietheater is to free the audience to evaluate the staging and “the music itself” as independent components, without being drawn into the mimetic trickery of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
The problem with this Brechtian critique of mimesis is that it conflates the distinct concepts of gesture (the actor’s bodily occupation of space, apprehended somatically by the audience) and imitation (a naturalistic approach to narration that appeals to the audience’s emotions). Lepage’s production at least suggests the possibility that these deeply entwined concepts might be disentangled. With its unrivaled spatial plasticity, Lepage’s entire stage seems to gesture at the audience—but not to create the illusion of a naturalistic world.