004 | Aesthetics in Opera I (2017) 

Since the birth of the first existing opera Eurydice in 1600, opera has captivated many people and demonstrated its charm. Then why are we moved by the opera? Why did the opera survive for so long and make people go crazy?

Opera is a play that is spoken in music in a word. Opera has songs, literature, dance, and spectacular art. All of this is one total art combined. In addition to this, there is philosophy in opera. The opera was closely associated with social and cultural elements of the time, as can be seen in the reenactment of the Greek tragedy of the Renaissance, which achieved a complete unity of poetry and music. The opera-loving scholars wanted to unravel the meanings contained in the opera, and in the process, many aesthetic disputes and problems of value judgment arose.

Today, however, when musicals are loved by the public, opera has become a rare and noble hobby. Does the long-running era of opera come to an end? Is opera valid today? Isn't it possible that only superficial arguments can travel in their own world?
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This book answers these questions. The past does not end in the past. The present and the future are based on the past. So the opera is still valid. In response, the authors selected nine works, from Renaissance works represented by Monteverdi to modern opera by Jin Eun-sook, and reinterpreted them in the current perspective. Various groups of human beings and surrounding worlds, such as Mary, who committed evil but was reborn as a martyr like Maria, Nero, a tyrant portrayed as a sweet romantic, Lady Macbeth of patriarchal society, and Me in Spring, who believes in a marriage scam, are being reorganized and described beyond time and space.