Gesamtkunstwerk

[guh-zahmt-koonst-verk]

Gesamtkunstwerk ("total," "integrated," or "complete artwork") is a German term attributed to the German opera composer Richard Wagner (who first used the term in his 1849 essay Art and Revolution). He used it to refer to an operatic performance encompassing music, theater, and the visual arts. Wagner felt that in ancient Greek tragedy, these had been fused, but at some point they drifted apart — he was critical of the opera of his time, especially Grand opera, which he felt emphasized bravura singing, and sensational staging, orchestral and plot effects, too heavily and did not feature quality poetic drama genuinely supported by other arts.

Wagnerian opera

Some elements of opera reform, seeking a more 'classical' formula, had begun at the end of the 18th century. After the lengthy domination of opera seria, and the aria da capo, a movement began to advance the librettist and the composer in relation to the singers, and to return the drama to a more intense and less moralistic focus. This movement, "reform opera" is primarily associated with Christoph Wilibald Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi. The themes in the operas produced by Gluck's collaborations with Calzabigi continue throughout the operas of Carl Maria von Weber, until Wagner, rejecting both the Italian bel canto tradition and the French "spectacle opera", developed his union of music, drama, theatrical effects, and occasionally dance.

Other artistic uses of the term

Opera has been often thought to be an example of Gesamtkunstwerk in general, as it requires the that all of the major classical schools of art be utilized. This includes painting and the two-dimensional visual arts in general (set painting, e.g.); sculpture and architecture (set design); poetry and narrative (the libretto); music (the orchestration and the vocalizations); and movement (blocking, or dance).

Wagnerian opera not only combines all these things, but demands for the most part that all of them be present on the stage both concurrently and constantly for the entire duration of the performance. It might be said that Wagner's definition meant to separate one sort of opera, his opera, from others, rather than separate all forms of artistic expression.

Paul Valery argued that museums might be examples of the Gesamtkunstwerk, as they combined both the visual arts being displayed, constant background music, the design of the building and the presentation of the works of art, and the necessary ambience of the public place in which the viewer found themselves. In this context, he considered the judgment of Gesamtkunstwerk to be wholly undesirable.

Other uses of the term

Some scholars have suggested that a movie or video camera allows the simulation of a single perspective on an event or narrative, therefore placing television or cinema above even opera in its potential to achieve the highest level of Gesamtkunstwerk.

Writer and director Bertolt Brecht sought to expand the "completeness" of the Gesamtkunstwerk to include members of a play's audience, utilizing the illusion of inclusion of the audience by breaking the "fourth wall" of the stage.

Some postmodern scholars have suggested that video games, especially those that follow a first-person perspective through a linear narrative, are a high example of the Gesamtkunstwerk. By adding the opportunity for participatory interaction, even direction, to a narrative, they introduce a facet of "wholeness" utterly absent from Wagnerian opera. An example often given of this superlativity is that of the computer game Myst; other examples include immersive narratives such as Half-Life, variable-ending games such as Deus Ex, and massive multiplayer games such as EverQuest.