Pandēmijas ietekme operā: Quo Vadis?

Abstract

Based on relevant examples, the article covers the main challenges faced by the opera genre during Covid-19 pandemic. In summer 2021, almost two concert seasons had passed, providing artists only partial opportunities to do their job, earn money and interact with their audiences. The impact of the pandemic produced in opera could be assessed only in a few years. However, outlining some effects today allows forecasting changes in cultural ecosystem that will influence the development of opera all over the world. The article analyses, firstly, the impact of downtime and interruption of creative processes based on relevant examples, and, secondly, reflects on changes in artistic, technical, technological, and show form issues observed during 2020/2021 season. The first part discusses such issues as reduced income, maintenance of professional form, the necessity of retraining and communication with audiences, meanwhile, the second part covers several opera productions made during the pandemic that reflect conditional changes in preparation, production, and end result. Because of challenges in researching the ongoing process, generalizing conclusions obviously would be a mistake, however the author the comes up presents with several ideas summarizing current challenges in the opera genre today.