ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the physical and the allegorical, the artistic illusion and collective catharsis, come together, negating spatial and temporal frames, and creating an unusual world of fantasy that is, in the first place, communal. It defines the dialectics of spatial closure and openness as a historical phenomenon that gains relevance exactly at the moment when the stage becomes a separate space for the theatrical display of imaginary innerness, while the other space, the space of the audience, becomes deeply separated from what is represented on the scene. The chapter looks at pieces that go beyond the traditional use of echo as lament, and whose creators even more significantly experiment with a display of echo as a musical maniera, while negotiating between the sense of presence and theatricality. It examines a twentieth-century piece that exploits the notion of 'spatial' music in a way that echoes seventeenth-century examples, thus influencing and changing the listener's perception.
