CoLab - Day 2 (Tuesday 16th February 2021)
The second day of CoLab started at 11am and it began with a group discussion. As a group, we thought about different topics we might want to explore in the week and created a wordart.com college to identify these areas and keep them present in our thoughts (see image on the right).
After the discussion, we returned to our aria groups. Before thinking about the artistic demands of the project, we were faced with the logistics of creating a project in three different locations. It was agreed that I should record myself first to indicate the tempo changes in the piece. Laura listened to this recording whilst recording the accompaniment on the harp and later sent this version to me. I then recorded the aria properly to Laura’s harp accompaniment. In order to make editing as simple as possible, we agreed that I should pre-record my singing and mime in the video recordings, giving the option to play with different angles, if necessary.
After the audio recording was completed, I emailed it to Kirsty. At this point, the three of us decided to regroup and discuss the artist vision of the project. We concluded that ‘in operas of the nineteenth century, almost all heroines are victims, persecuted by men’(1) and instead of romanticising this narrative, we wanted to show the the harsh reality of the situation. Kirsty suggested working with body paint to show a visualisation of Violetta’s deterioration and that the body paint would become more pronounced as the aria continued.
Both performances were to take place in bathrooms for continuity, but Kirsty’s performance was to highlight the internal struggle of Violetta, whilst my performance was to represent the physical struggle. Whilst we officially finished CoLab at 4pm, editing and recording went on into the evening. Whilst the process took much longer than I anticipated, I was so impressed with the work produced by everyone in the group. I completed the video of the aria in the evening and placed it online to present to the group the following day (see video above).
References
Vlado Kotnik, ‘The idea of Prima Donna: The history of a very special opera’s institution’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 47/2 (2016), 247.