Abstract

Don Quixote’s fascination with Master Peter’s puppet show has spurred artists and stage directors from the 19th century to the present, creating and recreating a definitive repertoire of adaptations for puppets based on Cervantes’ works. As might be expected, in terms of sheer numbers the Don Quixote itself leads off the list of marionette performances on national and international stages. This article, however, focuses on the staging of Manuel de Falla’s opera Master Peter’s Puppet Show (1923) and the Eduardo Vasco’s sole dramatic adaptation of the epic poem Journey to Parnassus (2005). Moreover, this study investigates the aesthe­tics of puppetry through a close reading of these two creations, broadening the cultural and artistic legacy of Cervantes during the 20th and 21st centuries.

Abstract

The opera industry wants to renew its audience and has undertaken several strategies based on digitalization and audiovisual broadcasting to achieve it. In order to attract and create a stronger bond with new audiences, it is exploring different ways to update its information policy and modernize its image. By means of Internet, it has managed to get the opera show offstage, bringing it closer to the daily lives of its spectators thanks to video on demand (VOD) and to live streaming broadcastings. It has made the most of mobile devices to enhance their shareable presence, imitating the audiovisual commercial trends to arouse enthusiasm among its viewers and creating social networks to offer the audience a referential background. Finally, the opera industry looks upon its current state and its social integration as a means of regaining its relevance.

Abstract

Web 2.0 and browsers are two very closely connected concepts. The reason is that browsers are the user agents that are needed to make navigating web 2.0 a reality. Within a very short span of time, new versions have been issued by the top three web browsers: Explorer, Firefox and Opera. In this article we examine and compare the new capabilities and functions of these three browsers in terms of the new web.

Abstract

This work analyzes four Italian opera librettos derived from the four comedies of Calderón (El alcaide de sí mismo, Ni amor se libra de amor, El Faetonte, Eco y Narcisco), centering on the criteria of adaptation that are given between comedies and librettos, whether there is present an intermediary stage (constructed by an Italian or French rewriting), or a direct derivation of the Calderonian texts is treated. The comparison of the librettos with the Spanish «texts of music» further permits a highlighting of the different characteristics of the two types of musical shows, underlining the strong presence in Spain of the literary text, which does not allow for the necessary simplification of the Italian «drama by music».

Abstract

Apostolo Zeno’s libretti have many conventions in common with Calderón’s dramaturgy: «correlaciones», dreaming speeches, interventions «al acaso»... This is unexpected in such a detractor of Baroque as the rationalist reformer of opera seria. Though some of them can be shared with other authors, it is possible to hypothesize that Zeno had direct contact with Calderón’s work. In order to prove this, we have considered the coincidence of some plots and the presence of a volume of Calderón’s Autos in Zeno’s private library, but we have examined in particular his own libretti in search of these conventions which are parallel to Calderón’s. We may exclude hazard as an explanation: Zeno returns to certain elements of Calderón’s style which had proven their effectiveness, at least when they are not in contradiction with the main conditions of the rationalist reform of his time.