AbstractsCommunication

This study investigates the particular integration of drama and music into the unique genre of opera through the common element of time. Its aim is to offer new conceptualisations of time in opera that will provide composers with tools to understand and control various aspects of the temporal dimension within the genre, as well as expand my own techniques and facility to compose music-dramatic works. To this end, this document is in two parts; the first, a research text; the second, an original monodrama composition. In Part I, Temporality in Twentieth-Century Opera, four types of artistic time are proposed, which form the basis of this dissertation's arguments. Issues related to formal organisation, continuity, discontinuity, and the perception of temporal proportions are discussed in relation to music, while the nature of narrative and temporal representation are considered in the realm of drama. This text shows how the temporal multiplicities inherent in both music and drama occur simultaneously and often in apparent conflict with one another. When combined, music and drama's individual temporal properties create Operatic Time, and in order to account for the various resulting possible combinations I offer categorical systems based upon historical references, and issues of temporal unity. Lastly, I propose a particular conceptualisation of how time advances in opera based upon the temporal function of text, and present an original analytical system that I call Text Index Series Analysis. With it, several opera excerpts from the last century are analysed and the results demonstrate various approaches to pacing and their effect on music-dramatic temporal meanings with La thèse fait une enquête sur l'intégration particulière, au domaine inimitable de l'opéra, de l'art dramatique avec la musique à travers un élément en commun au deux, le temps. Elle vise de nouvelles conceptualisations du temps dans l'opéra en fournissant des outils aux compositeurs pour qu'ils puissent comprendre et régir divers aspects de la dimension temporelle ; elle vise aussi à élargir mes propres techniques et moyens dans la facture d'œuvres musico-dramatiques. Dans ce but, le document est divisé en deux parties : un mémoire de recherche ; un monodrame, œuvre lyrique originale. À la partie I, « Temporalité dans l'opéra au vingtième siècle », je propose quatre types de temps artistique qui constitue la base de discussion. Relativement à la musique, les questions examinées sont liées à l'organisation formelle, ainsi qu'à la continuité et à la discontinuité et à la perception de…