Online Opera - An Applied Collision of Opera and Web Creativity

This zip file contains a standalone interactive version of the PhD thesis titled 'Online Opera: An Applied Collision of Opera and Web Creativity'. This is the intended format of the thesis, and the only way to view the creative artefacts that comprise the work's original contribution to knowledge.

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- A 'Read Me' HTML file that contains instructions on how to engage the thesis (opens in a web browser)

- The thesis in PDF format with embedded links to web figures hosted online. The figures include images, video walkthroughs, PDF documents and interactive demonstrations of technology

- A collection of folders and files that comprise the web figures stored locally in the zip file. This avoids the need to have a web connection to view content.

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Note: To ensure that links to web figures work, please do not adjust the structure of the unzipped folder.

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Scott, L.T.D (2021) Online opera: an applied collision of opera and web creativity. PhD thesis, Bath Spa University.

ABSTRACT

This practice-based research explores the collision of opera and web creativity through the development and evaluation of a new 'online opera' called The Village (2015). Contrasting existing offerings that position the web as a means of disseminating more familiar representations of opera, The Village draws on concepts of participatory culture, digital storytelling and co-creativity to advance a culturally novel apprehension of online opera that treats the web as a unique creative space. This interpretation is intrinsically digital, unable to be realised through conventional forms of theatrical presentation, and transformative in its approach to the core elements of opera. The Village in additional serves as a vehicle to investigate how the phenomenon of 'liveness' - that is, a feeling of 'now-ness' experienced in live performance - may be reimagined in the context of an entirely mediated opera. A range of theoretical perspectives are drawn on to establish a set of liveness devices that attempt to evoke in visitors to The Village a sense of contemporaneity and shared experience. These include temporal alignment between virtual and real-world events and the facilitation of social interaction through a narrative mechanism called the 'Digital Chorus', amongst others. Evaluative activities critique the effectiveness of such devices, and offer means in which they may be modified to better construct 'the live'.