REHEARSING TIME

Abstract

This article explores the times and datedness of new opera. When referring to an opera (20**) the bracketed number that follows the composition title usually refers to the date of composition or the first performance. When asked how many times an opera was played, its interpreters tend to refer to the number of performances, not the number of instances of rehearsal and individual practice. These times often remain unmentioned by performers, composers, production teams and institutions. But what do we make invisible when we exclude the main act of collective labour in the production of a new staged work? How do new operas structure their times and, in turn, how do these various times restructure new opera? I call for an inclusion of the rehearsal in the temporal narratives that new opera tells through its dates and times, emerging from collaborative processes in compound temporalities. With ethnographic glimpses into different operatic rehearsal studios, I examine the process that takes up most of new opera's time – rehearsal time – rather than audiences’ or performers’ lived experiences during the performance. This article maps the times inside rehearsal time – from daily schedules, call times and deep times of props to computational time and the timing of time itself – for better understanding new opera's ontology.