La via della musica. Rischi e trasformazionidel live film opera nelle produzioni Raidi Andrea Andermann

In the recent history of the Rai, La via della musica, the series of operas produced by Andrea Andermann and broadcast live on tv, merits a comprehensive study. This is a series of live film operas, cinematographic adaptations of opera, created at the very moment of performance without resorting to any form of cutting or post-production editing. An analysis of the four events, broadcast worldwide between 1992 and 2012 (Tosca nei luoghi e nelle ore di Tosca, Traviata à Paris, Rigoletto a Mantova, Cenerentola: una favola in diretta) allows for a consideration of the notion of operatic liveness, suggesting an in-depth look into the emotional reactions of the audience of a media performance, the Rai technical transformations over a period of twenty years, and the paths that different directors take within the same television project. On the one hand, the productions aim to achieve the greatest transparency and the mimesis of the viewer; on the other hand, they emphasize the uncertainty of the technological effort, exploiting the natural amplification of live television. The directors engaged by Andermann (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Marco Bellocchio, Carlo Verdone) adapt their choices to the media project, finding individual solutions to the broadcasting of the opera as a live film. What they all have in common, however, is the perception of risk, shared by both the performers and viewers of the experiment. The dangers of a Tosca conceived in high-tech are proportionate to the production date itself (1992). Traviata attempts an extremely acrobatic exploitation of spacial multi-dimensionality and of the steadycam-character. Rigoletto experiments with a dialogue of locations, forcing the protagonists to move unnaturally, often outside a singer’s comfort zone. Finally, Cenerentola plays the wild card of mixing opera and cartoon, attempting also the daring move of altering Rossini’s score. The article highlights the shared element of risk while analyzing the main transformations in the series that bring together liveness and live in an original utilization of television.