ABSTRACT
The introduction details the conception of voice and of opera developed in the book: voice overrides all other parameters in opera; opera is taken to be a medium founded on the primacy of the singing voice; the attraction exerted by the singing voice is positioned above all the other constituents associated with opera. The view of staging advanced is one which provides a way to intensify, to the extreme, this primacy of the voice. It is an approach towards an aesthetics of a voice in performance. In seeking to explore this understanding of the voice’s primacy in staging opera, the introduction explains the choice to stage contemporary works. It also provides examples of staging voice in canonical operas by other directors. The chapter considers the complexities of framing the book theoretically within existing theories of staging opera, of musically staged theatre, as well as within performance theories, performance as research and the rising field of Voice Studies. Notably, a classification of nearly a dozen possible modes of staging voice is sketched.
