Opera in Performance: Staging Interartistic Works and its Theoretical and Methodological Implications 1 Marcus Mota Affiliation: Universidade de Brasília - Brasil Address: SQN 206 Bl.B Apto 104. Brasília- DF. Brasil. Universidade de Brasília, Brazil. Tel: 61 3477719 Email: marcusmota@unb.br Aim and objectives The focus on the diversity of references is the fundamental operation to go beyond the normal relationship between text and music. This sort of traditional dual approach to text and music for understanding is not enough in order to understand the materiality and complexity of an interartistic work 2 . In fact this dichotomy is based on the privilege of print over performance. Context Professors, students and amateurs have been integrated in an educational and artistic experience for the past year at Universidade de Brasília, Brazil. This experience, called the Opera Studio, is articulated in the exploration of the different references including text, scene and music when we are performing operas. Methodology We have developed several strategies in order to overcome dichotomies and privileges at the Opera Studio. First of all, we work together with dramaturgical proceedings operating like macro structure to the scene’s construction, character’s oppositions and complementaries, audience’s expectations. Thus dramaturgy is not a pre-established perspective of the textual interpretation, but a constructive comprehension of creative limits and possibilities. The interpreters play the role of authors. Authorship is distributed amongst every participant in the Studio’s work. After stimulating the dramaturgical issues during the rehearsals, the performance and the dramaturgical issues are strongly linked by intense repetition of physical movements and vocal acting. The same scene is always a new situation to build up aesthetic patterns. We do not rehearse just for the definitive and final representation. Rehearsals are acts of collaborative creativity. If the interpreter understands and practices that, he/she will improve the performance by putting becoming part of the collective exchange of intellectual issues and physical skills. Communal exchange is a challenge. Professional opera’s singers are currently associated to               !!" ##$