ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the evanescence of multimodal resources codeployed in operatic texts. Each multimodal artifact can be read, understood, and received differently, depending on the context and semiotic expertise of the receiver. An opera, for example, can be interpreted very differently by an occasional spectator or by a hardcore fan (Abel 1996). The combination of resources and how they are read and interpreted by communities or societies is neither static nor predictable and may vary considerably across time and space according to context. Within the tradition of multimodality, some studies have focused on different texts, genres, and artifacts in intercultural perspectives (Bowcher 2012) with the aim of dismantling the view that any communicative, performative, and social practice or event can and should be studied by prioritizing a given resource. Certain texts functionally prioritize some resources over others-it can, for example, be assumed that visuals play a pivotal role in painting as do body movements in mime, both of which respond to the sign-maker’s interests (Kress 1997, 2010)—it is, nonetheless, true that texts, genres, practices, and events present complex and often inextricable ensembles of resources. However, disciplines such as performance studies or musicology are not always ready and willing to understand how these intricate combinations work and produce meanings in performing arts-the result of Western-centered epistemologies whose ‘fortress’ lies in well-established fields of studies (Sindoni, Wildfeuer, and O’Halloran 2016). Before providing a framework for the analysis of opera as an eminently multimodal event, we argue the case for a multidisciplinary approach and for the analysis of opera beyond the traditional musicological agenda.
