Robert A. Baker Writings

“ “That we may simultaneously identify both linearity (evoking motion) and cyclic procedure (evoking stasis) suggests that, within the complex of a musical texture, some constituent elements may evoke one type of musical time, while different constituents evoke another. The understanding, therefore, of Musical Aesthetic Time, is not singular or exclusive. On the contrary, it is multiple and we must contemplate the combined nature of the various Musical Aesthetic Times evoked in all their complexity and paradoxical beauty.”

– R. A. Baker
From: Temporality in Twentieth-Century Opera
(Part one of PhD Dissertation in two parts, McGill University,
Montreal, Canada. Summer 2008),
pp. 34-35

The Spaces and Places of Opera (Circuit Musique Contemporain, Vol. 17, no. 3 (December 2007): Musique in situ)

Abstract: Site-specific opera are those works which are either composed for, or produced in (or both) a prescribed space other than that of the opera house. The particular site chosen for the production of such a work has a profound effect on how that work of art is received. Questions are raised with regard to the work’s meaning and its relationship to the time and place of the site in which it is performed. In order to better understand the spatial and temporal richness within site-specific opera, recent productions of European and North American operas from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are considered. Based upon composer/librettist intentions, the site of the premiere production and its relation to the music-dramatic work, five types of site-specific opera are proposed.

Temporality in Twentieth-Century Opera (Part one of PhD Dissertation in two parts, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Summer 2008)

Abstract: 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. On the basis of four proposed types of artistic time, 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 within any given work.