The Evolution of Opera as a Theatrical Artform and Technological Impacts: Future

Recommendations on Studies

1. Introduction
The emergence of opera as a specific art form is linked with the Italian Renaissance and an
innate desire of poets, musicians, and dramatists to build an ideal theatre in music. The
foundation stones of opera, the genre of this musical theatre or musical theatre, consisted of
pre-existing theatrical system's forms in which some fully developed, but very imperfect
operatic characteristics had been nurtured. Recitative, the musical speech concept, was first
used in 1400. The rise of professional singers was the first professional stage in the history of
opera because it induced the development of new musical forms, the idea of urban opera was
born, and the coming of purely musical stage arose. However, all these ideas were mostly
applied only in the context of lyric theatre until the 1930s, and they were indeed incompatible
with worldly theatre forms, genres, or conventions.
Literature and theatre were also flourishing in the Italian Renaissance, but unlike music, with
its starkly superior achievements of the late sixteenth century, regarded as masterpieces. The
peculiarity of opera is that, although it arises from musical and theatrical substrate, from the
very beginning it intermingles both systems and adds more aural elements, the text, the
original spoken text is partly sacrificed. Therefore, the question of how it is possible to
identify the aspects which are style specific to opera, and on which substrate formative
influences are founded, is extremely complex. Since the dimensions of theatricality and of
drama are central, a rudimentary system of theatre stages is proposed. Theatre stages, such as
theatrical systems, fully emerged independent from culture type no sooner than in the
sixteenth century. Until then and even in its professional phase, the Holy Theatre (based
originally on the cults and rituals) prevailed in Christianity, too.
With the development of polyphony with its increased complexity, something essential in
compositional theatre style began to change. On the one hand, this increased complexity
manifested itself in the proliferation of independent melodies, musical multicentrism became
a default compositional property, probably impeding the intelligibility of text or texts, and
finally, unity of harmonic processes. At the same time, the problems of monody were bandied
about. As a musical system, and despite some pontiffs against its use, it became a music
universal, allowing the transformation of harmonic analyses. Tracing the evolution of opera
as a fifth art form, a concept widely applied to the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean Sea
basin and its basin. Moreover, concert theatre, though it exploded on its own, is educationally
the most cross-cultural one, but opera is the nearest relative, sharing thousands of years of
common development. The potential of opera, among them a full use of theatre effects and
effects of perception of operatic audience converting simple empathic perception into infinite
connotative associations.

2. Historical Development of Opera

As a multifaceted theatrical art form combining music, singing, acting, and visual elements,
opera continues to express diverse human emotions and experiences, including love, jealousy,
ambition, and tragedy. Its magic lies in the blending of various artistic forms and techniques
into a coherent, holistic performance. This complex and interdisciplinary nature gives opera a
unique and fascinating quality. However, what is opera? This inquiry can be answered from
musical, theatrical, experiential, and philosophical perspectives.
In Renaissance Italy, the birth of opera emerged during a period of intellectual vigor and
artistic exploration known as the Humanism Movement. Poets, playwrights, painters,
sculptors, architects, engineers, and musicians revisited and revived the Ancient Greek
civilization, seeking to understand its contributions to knowledge, culture, and democracy.
Math, astronomy, politics, ethics, philosophy, and natural sciences were studied and
translated into Latin or the vernacular languages. Many works still have great significance
today, such as Aristotle’s Poetics. Although only fragments of musical portions exist, it is
believed that Ancient Greek tragedies had song and music elements, influencing the creation
of opera. (Drollinger, 2021)
Opera originated in the late sixteenth century as a means to resurrect singing in Ancient
Greek tragedies. "Thespis" (1575) is regarded as the first musical theater work and precursor
of opera. Its precise music notation remains unknown, relying on reciting musical notes and
melodies on the same pitch with a regular rhythm. This singing style, known as
"declamation," consists of two major elements: reciting speech and singing. It became the
model for the new form of opera. "L’Euridice" (1600), composed by Jacopo Peri with libretto
by Ottavio Rinuccini for the Medici family, is recognized as the first opera to be preserved
fully. A few baroque operas came along Soriano/Eurydice and Monteverdi/L’Orfeo.
Monteverdi’s operas are notable for the integration of many bold innovations, Mozart and Da
Ponte’s operas are marvelous for their ensemble and choruses, and Wagner’s operas are
interesting for their use of harmony and orchestration. By continuing to introduce new
strategies, languages, and technologies, opera has captivated audiences and artists alike. What
changes opera has undergone as a theatrical art form and what technological impacts it has
faced are compelling questions. (Bezett, 2023)

2.1. Origins and Early Forms

As a distinct theatrical art form, opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century and
flourished throughout the 17th century, with local variations emerging in France, Germany,
and Spain in the 18th century. The word opera refers to a specific theatrical genre, but it also
denotes an art form that combines various features, such as singing, orchestral playing,
acting, and performance design. These features interact to generate meanings, which are
understood in part through an intertextual network of rules and conventions. The emergence
of opera thus illustrates how a new genre is developed and negotiated through a range of
social, cultural, and historical processes.
The first operas were performed in the new media of venues such as palaces, aristocratic
courts, and opera houses. Since then, opera has been created, performed, received, and
understood in a variety of places, even in private homes and public spaces. Opera is also a
genre in the sense of a type of text. The first operas are now called "early operas" and are
understood as being composed in a manner that was new for music drama. The operas of the
early 17th century were also unique in promoting a novel view of music, drama, and text.
New notions of music's capacities for meaning were elaborated and debated by a network of
musicians, poets, and philosophers in Florence, Venice, and Mantua. (D'Orazio, 2020)
The early operas were composed for, and are intimately linked to, specific locations and
events. Their performance contexts guided their production, promoting certain aspects of the
interaction between music and text and restricting others. The historical development of
opera as a theatrical art form must include participants other than composers and librettists,
such as performers and patrons. It must also encompass a consideration of the reception and
understanding of opera by audiences, listeners, and readers. As opera developed in different
locations, various musical, textual, and theatrical features were prioritized or substituted, and
new conventions emerged as acceptable means for the generation of meanings. The
significance of particular operatic sign systems also changed over time, so that features that
were central to the early generation of opera came to be viewed as peculiar or inappropriate
to the genre's essence.

2.2. Baroque and Classical Periods

The invention of the opera as a new genre, with its own language, forms, and conventions, is
commonly traced back to the Florentine Camerata in the late 16th century. A group of
Florentine artists, patrons, and intellectuals met to discuss the intellectual and artistic climates
of the times and speculated on what could unite literature, music, and visual arts. The ideal
entertainment was to demonstrate the full range of human emotions, combining the
neoclassical clarity and broad scope of Greek theatre—a topic largely unknown to the general
public—within the unity of time and place. To achieve this, they turned to the epic
melancholy of the ancient Greek tragedies as the most poignant and arresting expression of
human passion. However, the proposals for the revival of the Greek tragedies in their original
forms proved impractical, leading to W. Christof's wish to achieve the same goal through
smaller and more easily digestible spectacle, namely singing talk or a recitative. The result
was the emergence of opera as a new art. (Wechsberg, 2023)(Brigo et al.2023)
Operating along the lines of the Florentine Camerata in Venice, Italy, a new opera genre—
dramma per musica—was born, which became stylized and codified under pressure from
groups of men of theatre and virtuosic singers at the beginning of the 18th century. The
golden age of opera flourished as a new theatrical art form across Europe in the 18th and 19th
centuries. With the advent of the mechanization of theatre machinery at the beginning of the
19th century, opera houses were equipped with new kinds of stage machineries, for
dispatching clouds of smoke and rotating scenes to the accompaniment of music, lighting,
and decorations, in order to enhance and dramatize the spectacle of all the astonishing events
that were depicted on stage. Although the operatic tradition outside Italy was originally based
on Italian models and repertory, it rapidly began to diverge through the efforts of native
composers and librettists coming to prominence in 18th-century France, Germany, Austria,
and the British Isles. In each case, the relationship between music and the word was
transformed, along with the forms of singing, instrumentation, orchestration, and harmony,
scale, and pacing of the overall theatrical spectacle. In Asia, several new opera genres were
independently invented with their own language, forms, and conventions in the early
centuries of the 17th and 18th. Used metaphorically in the sense of 'song play' or 'drama with
singing', the word 'opera' has since been substantially adopted by the general public across
cultures and also in academia. (Tomars, 2020)(Radu-Giurgiu, 2022)
The operatic tradition was further invigorated with the birth of a new genre in the early part
of the 19th century. Operas in which the music seemed to emerge naturally from the dramatic
tension and the character of the characters, rather than feeling like the imposition of an
extravagant display of technical virtuosity, became a new musical revolution. Coined as the
'music drama', this new genre was initially born within a ten-year span in Germany. Although
it only briefly flourished in the 19th century, the genre proved influential and envied,
providing new ideals and norms for composing operas. Mid-19th-century opera houses were
equipped with grand and lavish teaate magazines, gaily lit by an increasing profusion of gas
lamps, and fashioned with a ceiling made to resemble a dazzling starry sky. The mechanical
devices of rotating scenes were put into service to choreograph the entrance and exit of high-
spirited horses, as well as the constant tilting and submerging of ships on stormy seas.
2.3. Romantic and Modern Opera
Romantic opera during the 19th century was characterized by an emphasis on a number of
elements such as spontaneous emotion, individualism, passionate idealism, reverence for
nature, fascination with the supernatural, and nationalistic fervor. A labelled drawing by M.
A. C. Bell, showing the participants in Lord Byron's play Manfred at the Cathedral of
Westminster and, more broadly, in the London Opera House of the Italian Fatalist and his
Daughter, combines some key preoccupations of the Romantic opera period. These include
competing theories of life and death; strong expressions of passionate idealism and youthful
individualism through deeper experience, the flight of the imagination, and meditation on
nature in search of inspiration; a preference for the gloomy, the legend, and the fatalistic;
sensations of melancholy, of night and gothic darkness; yearnings for the exotic and for
outward dominance; a sense of gloire and jeune; nationalism (or all three to be placed), e.g.,
C. [Tobias], La Muette de Portici (1830) here at Brussels; defile "there above," untroubled by
competition from Cromwell or guardian angels. (Matt, 2020)
Later, modern opera emerged with diverse and varied artistic expressions of music in concert
halls and theatres. In Italy and Germany, composers like Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti,
Meyerbeer, Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini produced new operas and music-dramas. In France,
operas were written by Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, and Offenbach. Unique traditions of opera
existed in Russia (e.g., Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov), Czechoslovakia (e.g., Dvorak
and Janacek), Finland (e.g., Sibelius), and Hungary (e.g., Erkel). As the United States
operated at first within European practice, American-born operas such as those of Ives and
Gershwin emerged. In contemporary art music, opera continued to be a relevant theatrical art
form, even as its definition expanded so that opera is now seen as encompassing all stage
performances that combine music with other art forms like theatre, dance, digital art, and
visual images. Devised and postmodern works, as well as musical theatre, have grown out of
the dissociation between music and words that took place in new art music before World War
I. Experimentation with vocal and theatrical means has characterized much of modern opera
as it evolved alongside cinematic technologies in the 20th century.

3. Key Technological Innovations in Opera

Several key technological innovations have played a significant role in the evolution of opera
as a theatrical art form. These innovations have affected how operas are composed and
produced, expanding the possibilities of this uniquely hybrid medium. Initially designed as a
way of curating the entirety of the arts in a single art form, opera has adapted these
innovations based on necessity and strong aesthetic impulses, allowing it to survive hostile
periods while still remaining relevant in the current digital landscape.
Acoustic enhancements are crucial for the sound projection of operas staged in large grand
concert halls. Unlike traditional concert halls, their unique parabolic geometry establishes a
close reciprocity between the performance space's sound sources and listeners. This intimate
felt experience is made even more intimate by the increased use of microphones and
amplification, bringing sounds usually ignored by Western acoustic principles to the fore.
These acoustic interventions may have aesthetic fallout, particularly regarding the roles of
musicians and singers and the notion of silence in opera.
Stage design and lighting offer further expanding possibilities for the telling of stories
through operas. Previous conventions of staging limit the staging of a work on multiple
parallel stages at once, allowing for multiple interpretations of a single work to happen
simultaneously in the same space. With remote broadcast capabilities, operas performed off-
stage may be transported to the stage of an opera house, allowing audiences to become
witnesses of the opera's production. The application of projections to the mise-en-scène offers
to uproot this understanding of the world further, allowing for multiple different worlds to
coexist intricately within the same performance.
Finally, digital production tools have expanded the roles associated with staging opera on-
screen. The advent of digital modeling and animation technologies has allowed novel uses of
the screen in operatic productions previously expensive or impossible to realize. Real-time
animated output of cameras offers the possibility of incorporating live broadcast or video
feedback in the operation of the camera's rig. Closed-circuit feeds exploring video feedback
may heighten the audience's experience of operas on-screen by addressing the paradox of
participatory multimedia art forms. With such possibilities as generating stunning effects of
locations through digital modeling being part of operatic history yet unheard-of within the
screen, the aesthetic fallout is hard to predict.

3.1. Acoustic Enhancements

During the late 19th and the 20th centuries, the performance and presentation expectations of
opera became more complex and multimodal, with highly specialized artistic, theatrical,
architectural, and technical efforts. This period also marked the beginning of renewed focus
on the acoustic environment. In this section, a collective search of ten opera companies to
identify their operatic acoustic perception of seven nineteenth- and twentieth-century opera
houses represents the foundation of the analysis and perspective on their evolution as a
theatrical art form enhanced by technology. The focus is on acoustic design considerations of
opera houses and their contribution to the operatic compositional language. (Löfgren, 2024)
In terms of the acoustic qualities of opera houses, reverberation was considered an essential
and primary characteristic of the opera house design. However, an increase in the
performance of operas in poorly reverberant houses during the late 19th and the 20th
centuries led to a preference for the initially extreme reverberation conditions of French opera
houses. Ultimately, the modeling and analysis of operatic perception suggest that opera
performance and presentation as a theatrical form underpin an operatic compositional
language constructed from multi-layered considerations of the complex and multimodal
experience of opera.
Architectural acoustic design is understood to be the manipulation and arrangement of the
various dimensions and features in a space to produce a desired sound field within that space
for particular types of activities, performances, or events. Twelve five-type typologies that
encompass the significant operatic acoustical and architectural design considerations used in
the design of opera houses have been identified in this section and catalog the analogy
between the architectural designs and opera houses. (Llorca-Bofí & Vorländer, 2021)
The characteristics of operatic compositional language highlight that opera has the most
complex, encompassing, and involved compositional language of all theatrical forms. This is
because opera combines the playwright's, cinematographer's, and choreographer's roles and
language of considered notes and pitches in composition, visual presentation, and space in
writing, choreographing, or blocking. Within this theatrical presentation, opera also
encompasses the temporal language of music, theatre, and the moving image. A single opera
performance involves a large ensemble cast where each character goes on their own melodic,
dramatic, and emotional journey. Superimposing all the different tracks leads to a spectacle
of the complex narrative, downplaying the parts that are similar. Consequently, such a clash
of uniqueness generates unique individual perceptions to follow certain narratives. The
presence of a shared acoustic environment affects this consideration of the active listening
environment.
Overall, the analysis and perspective on the design and consideration of opera houses expand
upon and situate themselves within the existing literatures of architectural acoustics and
opera. The inclusion of acoustic perception further advances the research disciplines of
theatre studies, opera studies, architectural acoustic design, and acoustic design education.
Moreover, the theory highlights or suggests further avenues for development and
consideration in the field of opera studies, architectural acoustic design, and architectural
acoustic design education.

3.2. Stage Design and Lighting

The physical characteristics of theater spaces, along with the use of lighting and stage design,
greatly impact the effective delivery of a musical experience. The opera house itself serves as
a key complement to an opera performance. Such a complement is dictated and limited by the
choice of space, scenery, set design, set decoration, costume design, special effects design,
and lighting design, through which the opera is dynamically interpreted visually, enhancing
the visual-auditory experience of spectators. Specifically, the interior designs and the
arrangement of the proscenium and balcony seats of many modern opera houses, both of
which date back to the late 19th century, are tailored to optimize operatic acoustics. Other
innovations in lighting, stage design, and pairings of the two elements introduced by
technology also work in the same direction.
Technological advancements in lighting and stage design started gradually in the mid-18th
century. In 1763, William Toll adopted the first stage machinery in London, which revolved
to create composite scenic transformations. In 1766, both Giovanni Carlo and Chéret &
Grétry adopted two parallel stage curtains that allowed transformations between two
transformed scenes to occur rapidly. The second innovation was adopted in many theaters
afterward, but both remained difficult to maintain. In 1822, Paul Decque developed a large-
scale cinematic scenery capable of cloud-like movements coordinated with the changing light
and fumes that foreshadowed modern lighting elements. This was also in the experimental
stage and not widely adopted. Real advancements only came with gas-lamps. Gaslight, being
more intense yet controllable, allowed atmospheric effects, frontal lights, and pre-cueing that
were impossible with oil. (Sheppard, 2022)
In the second half of the 19th century, gas lighting vastly expanded in Western Europe with
the installation of elaborate water mains in major towns. To accommodate gas lighting, the
cockpit of the historic Covent Garden was renovated in the Italian Renaissance style in 1847.
Elsewhere, staged lighting in barrages was commonplace. Lighting by balustrades or from
public box was grand yet coarse. Conversely, flat scale boxes served to bathe the stage in a
beautiful dawn/fresh sun twilight due to the thinning of gas rays. This era was marked by the
emergence of a vast array of elaborate mechanisms controlling individual system’s limelight
arches, etc. German inventor and stage designer Robert Weigel pioneered translucent
lavolier/vouthuchon-light cupola. This moved result theaters to a golden age wherein
performer activities were conducted amidst chain-photodge perpetually running around the
centuries and sowing immense backdrops of arts. A plethora of show and other ingenious
effects filled audiences with feverish expectations despite defense being. Atmospheric
surprises gradually lost spells upon the transport of vital expressional body language.

3.3. Digital Production Tools

In recent years, digital technologies have advanced to the point of enabling automation in
audio and video design, creation, and production. This has already begun with some theatrical
art forms. In opera, technology has been primarily focused on the presentation of content, but
attention should be given to its path to realization, which includes the artistic realization of
audio and video designs, as well as their technical production areas in regard to the operatic
art form.
Software and systems exist allowing artists to create, edit, and execute automations
controlling multitrack rendered and live solo voices, solo instruments, loudspeakers, lights,
event footage, projections, and filters. These elements enhance the presentation of opera
performances at the same time as technology shifts the creation to the technical field, in a
sense moving away from solely artistic or creative content into spatially and informatically
ambiguous hybrid terrain. (Kawahara & Cohen, 2020)
Recommendations are given for opera studying bodies to monitor and develop accompanying
studies regarding emerging technologies utilized in scenic and musical creations. Emphasis
should be given to facilitating initiatives that group together artists and technologists,
allowing research into relevant avant-garde art forms, tools, and practices.
The domain of operatic art forms should be mapped. The movement of operatic art forms into
a hybrid expression state should be actively monitored. The role of opera in concerning art
forms and domains should be studied.
The imminent convergence of mass media and arts needs to be planned for in terms of
education. More hands-on, experimental, free-spaced art production environments should be
initiated with a wider scale of art forms, media, and avenue focus.
Artistic action should be taken towards opera and operatic art forms adapting avant-garde
media, technologies, and concepts. These should include the works of artists demanding
critical and disruptive structures in operas and its paths. Forms of artistic action and theater
conduction outside normative structures should be suggested. The explorative experiential
planning of sound and audiovisual immersivity should be taken on. Artists engaged in the
creation of operatic art forms should be encouraged to pursue political and social
contextualization in their art.
New subsidizing suggesting how to finance feasible art production environments across a
wider funding spectrum should be created. The significance of the engaged role of audio and
video technologies in the dissemination of operatic art forms and its cultural, political, and
social implications should be critically examined. There is still relatively little awareness of
the potential opening within the opera domain. Existing opera institutions, composers,
scenographers, and other significant artists should be engaged. (Richardson et al.2020)

4. Impact of Technology on Opera

Performances
Today, opera performances are intrinsically reliant on a plethora of technologies, owing to
their powers of sustainability augmentation, experience development, and even crisis
contingency planning deployments. Such technology-via-systems development-led powers
rendering on corporate-level sustainability enhancement, experience development, and crisis
contingency planning deployment augmentation of opera performances is aimed heavily at
wellbeing impact provisioning. The development of wealth and leisure amplification systems
was believed to be overwhelmingly successful during the last quarter of the 20th century,
based on the kingdoms of (1) machines and (2) transports. Such efforts were viewed as
directly associated with adversely negative wellbeing impact provisioning. As a counter-
approach to such an overwhelming experience development, opera performances were
viewed as promising similar experience development efforts, but within the necks of (3)
biology and (4) creativity. The technology-via-systems development-led powers rendering on
corporate-level sustainability enhancement, experience development, and crisis contingency
planning deployment augmentation of opera performances, as heavily aimed at wellbeing
impact provisioning, are mapped on axes (3) and (4).
Hearing alerting signals suffices not to accept disaster strike when preparing evacuations
during one's office hour stay in a commercial skyscraper. Pre-columns/safety enlargements
by subsequently mobilizing assisting social networks on representative conduits hold promise
of fast and safe evading the emergency. Of course, alerting signals are not sufficient in the
case of a chemical attack, nor during a prolonged blackout. Intentional mobilization failure
harm liquidation strategies for complex techno-systems called extensive confrontation
responses or Ancillary Recovery Destinies are designed when fearing anti-safety attacks.
Highly integrated warning and emergency management strategies to anticipate over-
proportional disruption spreads are called preventive safety nets or Structural Re-enforcement
Destinies. The overall strategy design is grouped under the concept of safety net systems.
There exist both nature and manmade safety net systems, addressing disturbance strike
scenarios from all kinds. Easy illustrations are earth-orbiting asteroids and tsunami waves
safety nets.
The prima vista's human nature affinity on the ontology of perception and interpretation, as in
Sullivan's part-to-whole relation of theorem (1867). The bio(medical)-scientific subset
theory-compliance is great, with discussions on health, equity, and a strong amniotic
emphasis on grand challenges. Nonetheless, the biomedical dominance works preferredly
disadvantageous on certain other inclusion categories as, e.g., art. The reasoning is,
alternatively focus on sustained advantage works only civilizing, i.e., systemic, historic, and
pictorial style engagement non-considering vantage working affluences and disadvantages.
Such works only excessively civilizing deterministic universal exclusion categories on
numerical yet process-statically manifold maintainability neglect primitive-often-to-much
violent demand-proofing power regimes apexing.

5. Future Directions and Recommendations

for Research
The present state of opera as a theatrical art form should not merely be accepted, but rather
queried and hypothesized. The question occurs as to what could opera become, to what
potential changes might it be subjected, how it might develop. The focus here is on opera as a
live theatrical art form specifically, and hence a distinction is immediately made between live
theatre and 'the movies', in order to ensure that what remains opera, and what is unconsidered
here, are the live aspects of opera's performance and not its recorded, broadcasted,
disseminated formats. Four broad strands of approach to future research are proposed, and
these have been chosen to ensure a plenitude of focus and to avoid the 'easy' option of
arguing that future work should necessarily focus on opera as the sum of its evolved function,
media, material, modes, and advocacy. Future directions of study are intended to be bold,
diffractive, non-standard in their practice and approach.
A sense of blindness to certain aspects of analysis is evoked, in part as a warning of the loss
of opera's immediacy to vertical modes of analysis, the sense of threat posed by advances in
mooted technologies. The need for more sympathetic varieties of analysis is not only
foreseen, but actively encouraged here, such as the employment of a Spatio-Temporal
Functional Ensemble Diagram and possible generations of Spatio-Temporal Multimodal
Perception Analysis. It is sought to derive analysis both from classic and experimental works
and influences within other disciplines - from here the Indiana Jones Passage is reconstructed
around some key event and concepts, Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed is considered,
as are David Belasco's story theatre and Edward Gordon Craig's total theatre. As a warning of
the dangers of opera disassociating itself from its roots in plurality and multitude, it is
invoked that the earliest operatic activity was predicated on a result very much against
universalism, the rise of individualism and complexity. As a presaging of possible states,
some early modernist 'future passes' are evoked.
The possibility of opera's industrial 'homogenisation' under pressures of commodity,
standardisation and centralisation is then mentioned, as well as examples of opening,
experimental or heterogeneous responses to the same pressures. Given the insurmountable
finitude of being, this approach modulates an understanding of research that embraces non-
conclusiveness, contingency, conjecture, speculation and play. With an assumption of the
hardware, software, protocols and communicative configurations that surround the
predominant involvement of technology in performance, it is advanced that further
developments in research on aspects of technology's involvement at different levels of
involvement (with respect to audition, vision, performance scenarios, etc.) could contribute
very constructively to the culmination of the experimental possibilities of the operatic as
theatre; to the concept of omni-opera. Specifically undertaken here is the encouragement of
extensive multi-lateral development, and possibly annex, or splinter, replication of walk-
through research in respect to opera and hitherto unconsidered technological convergence.

5.1. Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera and Technology

Contemporary opera studies could benefit from examining two fields that have historically
been intertwined: opera as a theatrical art form and the technologies it has either adapted or
adopted from older theatre traditions. Opera continues to be understood through the folk ideas
surrounding dramatic forms, as either a sung or music-dominated work that must be
accompanied by visual imagery, and, too, music that is inherently "more dramatic" than other
kinds of art music. Such ideas are democratizing and therefore devoid of knowledge about
dramatic forms as theatrical and technological regimes. With the urgent pursuit of opera's
viability, usefulness, and relevance in the digital age, this history, or histories, of opera as a
theatrical art form and the ways in which it has adapted technologies from existing dramatic
forms is ripe for consideration.
Having enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with technological development, opera's art form-
historical experience with sound-image reproduction technologies is particularly fertile.
Given the media body of the 20th century—film, television, and radio—with their aesthetic,
theatrical, stylistic, and performative conditions, the viability of opera as a dramatic art form
was endangered. Nevertheless, opera maintained dramatic and theatrical viability and
relevance over the course of the 20th century and still continues to do so within the semantic
framework of new telecommunications and computing technologies. Opera and dramatic art
forms, such as theatre, television, and film, are intrinsically similar. However, apparently
similar adaptation tendencies may reveal widely different autographic necessities. Opera, as a
hybrid media art and composite art form par excellence, has continuously adapted from
theatre's autographic necessities. Theatre, as a monomedia art and as a direct imitation of
reality with regulative absence of technology, has lost its dramatic viability and relevance in
the digital age and has had to cope with serious adaptation problems.
In addition to these dominant trends and manifestations of opera in new media, there have
also been some scattered and scholarly opera-technical curiosities in the digital age of a non-
commercial, non-institutionalized, and non-industrial nature. These opera-technical
curiosities and unique experiments are still at the age of discovery; aesthetic, theoretical,
formal, and portmanteau histories of digitally mediated opera have yet to be written. There is
an urgent need for discussing and providing concrete recommendations and guidelines
regarding future studies in the discussed thematic field.

5.2. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Opera

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies unfold new immersive worlds.
Initially developed for gaming and non-theatrical contexts, VR and AR are expanding into
opera. Their uses as artistic forms and creative tools, as well as their potential for broader
audience engagement and operatic experiences, warrant further research.
While 360° video on social media and live-streaming VR in cinema offer opera access to the
home, more explorative projects (such as AR operas in public spaces, virtual operas in VR
multifaceted online environments, and AI-assisted VR opera creation) present theoretical and
philosophical challenges regarding authenticity, liveness, and digital voyeurism. More
potential scenarios could be added to this developing field of opera and fifteen practical
questions posing the next significant performative possibilities raised by VR and AR unfold.
The tensions, considerations, and implications of each opera example, and milieu,
technologies, contradictions, and behaviors should inform new research in what opera is
today, and what the futures of opera could be, not necessarily limited to humanity.
In the years prior to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, the opera landscape has been changing, as
more operas were commissioned and created in the VR medium, museum experiences
integrated augmented technology and applications, and operatic materials and motifs were
appropriated in the gaming realm. AR and VR pose questions about the audience's perception
and roles as endowed or enchanted receivers of operatic worlds or parts in operatic
environments. Do historic repositories and this simulacrum of worlds offer potential dutiful
representations or demons of perversion and false expectations of socio-political, cultural,
and economic situations, and spaces of operatic worlds? Therefore, VR and AR emerging
operatic explorations and applications need the anatomy of future socio-technical
assemblages' perceived, imagined, and enacted environments with the various entanglements
and potentials of opera and VR, media, poetics, and audiences.

5.3. Sustainability and Opera Production

A wide variety of issues, including waste, pollution, and sustainability, have gained traction
recently as environmental crises escalated and exacerbated the social inequalities already
present. Calls for a radically different future were heard around the world, suggesting new
social contracts and action plans to which the arts and culture ecosystem, including opera,
non-opera theatre, dance, and music, was invited (though it is still too early to tell whether
such wider societal changes will take place). Within the arts, companies in the UK were
seeing their budgets and the expectations of the industries and their work cutting back before
the major global pandemic of 2020. The lockdown in large parts of the world for extended
periods of time caused artists, arts workers, and organizations to experiment with, learn,
adapt, and skill up to new "off screen" and "on screen" experiential realities.
As these "new realities" entered the professional toolkit of ideas, moves, forms, technology,
and aesthetics, they also prompted important questions about the re-thinking and expanding
of the boundaries and languages of opera, theatre, and art. While existing and often outdated
hierarchies and policies were pondered, as well as the status of artists within and outside of
institutions, there was a reported sense of guarding and control over the new offerings and
their intellectual property. If recent years have been characterized by a globalizing tendency
to share screen-operas as new multimedia and multi-functionality cultural products, it
remains to be seen how the post-pandemic future of opera will unfold in this regard. For now,
a critical scan of recent, ongoing, and future efforts undertaken by opera companies, festivals,
and individuals in the works is presented, including interactive experiences, 360-degree video
streamings, computer games, apps, film projects, and artificial intelligence.
Opera as a theatrical art form has evolved from its various elements within western tradition
with reference to the industrial developments of those times. Development of the means of
production and distribution have progressed symbiotically with opera as a developing art
form from the 16th century to this date, with the emergence of radio and sound film as
advancing the sustainability of opera until its latest technological experimentations with
artificial intelligence and online image world engagement. In the ensuing development of
opera as a theatrical art form, the online image world has provided opera and operatic
storytelling a historical moment to redefine itself preserving its strength and efficiency as an
art form realized by human creativity. All the audiovisual narrative experiments and
explorations with operatic storytelling conducted by opera houses, ensembles, companies,
and individuals since its first international streaming in 2004 to this date, both operationally
or experiential, have provided a sense-making overviewed map.
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