Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemCarried away: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of optimal aesthetic states of consciousness on the professional operatic stage.( 2018)ABSTRACT This thesis examines professional opera singers’ experience of optimal aesthetic states of consciousness when performing, particularly ‘peak’ and ‘flow’ states. While students have been the dominant research populations, it is argued that elite or expert opera singers, as a homogeneous group, are worthy of separate study owing to their highly skilled, extensive experience in the practice of this art form at professional and international levels. Published literature on consciousness and opera has highlighted that a 'bottom-up' process in the production of opera might lead to greater aesthetic connection, as opera too often suffers from reduced collaborative creativity, with each member of the cast and creative team focusing only on their own part. In view of the integrated and irreducible nature of opera as an art form, this examination takes place within professional practice of opera in order to add ecological validity to findings. A series of in-depth, open-ended interviews with nine elite professional opera singers forms one source of data, with emergent themes including both idiographic descriptions and common themes, including an altered sense of time, a sense of mastery, ecstasy, spiritual insight, and serenity. Descriptions of antecedent conditions that were thought to induce these positive states included focused attention, filtering out external stimuli, the primacy of text, rigorous musical preparation and openness to experience. These conditions were under the conscious control of the singers and point to the existence of highly developed psychological executive functioning, while still fully inhabiting the imaginative and spontaneous world of their character. In the second component, the author examines and reflects on her own practice, with respect to altered states of consciousness, as the principal singer in five public performances. Themes arising from rehearsals sessions and performances were analysed to produce an ethnographic narrative from within the professional culture of opera. The artistic ambition is set out and justified with respect to the literature in music and consciousness. By upsetting the usual relationship of performers to audiences in the physical performing space, it was possible to explore the nature and function of the dialogic in operatic performance. This led to a reflection on the difference it made to interior (psychological) space and its ultimate effect on consciousness as a performer. Overall, three themes in optimal performance experience united the two component parts of this thesis. Firstly, the necessity of the presence of the audience and the idea of a shared consciousness. Secondly, the mechanism by which opera singers reach peak states, particularly the role of the text. Thirdly, the benefit, role and meaning of habitual peak and flow experiences in performance to the personal development, wellbeing and career commitment of singers. Finally, a new model of peak experience is proposed, as it applies to professional operatic performance. This model allows, through expertise and the alteration of normal consciousness, a resolution of dichotomies that exist at lower levels of performance and in normal life. This perspective lends real world validity and contributes qualitatively rich information about the internal experience of elite musicians, uniting academic and practice-based research insights in music psychology.