The Grand Illusion: Opers; Its Form and Musico-Theatrical Conventions and Their Relationship with Examples from Three Faustion Operas

Abstract

The central thrust of my study has been to understand how music serves the theatrical event. In doing so I have been able to expand my opinion of theatre. I have learned to appreciate Theodore Shank's study The Art of Dramatic Art, not as book of theatre, but as study of an aspect of theatre arts. It has widened the span of theatre beyond a snobbish literary art to a more definitive view of the extents of theatre's influence and when an interpretation no longer is just a theatrical art but becomes a dramatic art, opera, dance, ballet, puppet play, movie, etc. What appears in the report are the very basic elements of opera, which conform the theatrical event.