Novam Viam or the “Dead End” of Opera in the Modern Socio-Cultural Space

Abstract

The aim of the study is to comprehend in a theoretical manner the principles of opera as a synthetic genre, namely taking into account the symbiosis of the properties related to the plot and storyline and musical properties themselves. The paper examines the development of opera in modern realities, the phenomenon of hybridity and openness of the genre. The author focuses on the mixed nature of opera as a result of the search for new means of expression. The scientific novelty of the study lies in defining modern opera as a hybrid, mixed genre, which together with modern technologies, means of performance and interpretation creates new contexts of musical expression, temporality and imaginary space. As a result, it has been determined that the evolutionary movement of opera has a centuries-old history and has always consisted of the confrontation of the new and the conservative, the elitist and the democratic, while opera was able to absorb the “intonation vocabulary of a specific era” and remain viable.