Hvar City Theatre Days, Vol. 52 No. 1, 2026.
Original scientific paper
From Note to Pixel: The Intermedial Staging of Don Giovanni as a Response to the Challenges of Contemporary Theatre
Ivana Krtinić
Abstract
The 2015 staging of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni at the Croatian National Theatre
Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka, created in partnership with the New Generation Opera from Helsinki
and directed by Erik Söderblom, marked a significant shift in the Croatian production of
canonical operatic works. This performance expanded the parameters of operatic staging
and signalled the evolving demands of contemporary reception, which increasingly calls
for intermedial and innovative approaches to theatrical direction. By integrating traditional
operatic components with contemporary technological media, the production generated a
fusion of dramatic, musical, and visual expression. The use of video projections, multimedia
elements, and experimental dramaturgical strategies contributed to the formation of a multilayered discursive field that reflects a modernised, interdisciplinary approach to interpreting the enduring myth of the great seducer, Don Giovanni. Three visual perspectives were simultaneously activated on stage, producing a scenic language that synthesised elements of both opera and film. This study examines how the experimental multimedia realisation of this canonical operatic work reshaped operatic narration and fostered a new mode of audience reception.
Modern technology and the emergence of cyberspace inevitably influence the creation
of contemporary artistic works, and theatre as an art form faces the challenge of adapting
to new media and to shifting audience expectations increasingly shaped by interactive and
digital modes of expression. Through an analysis of the relationships between music, stage space, technology, and dramaturgy, the paper explores how classical opera may be reconceptualised within a contemporary theatrical and technological framework.
Keywords
intermediality; Don Giovanni; opera–film; contemporary reception
Hrčak ID:
347187
URI
Publication date:
6.5.2026.
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