Emotion as a communicative mediator between the author, performing vocalist and listener of an opera

The aim of this research is to prove, using a well-known example (an excerpt from Lensky’s aria in the opera Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), that the entire spectrum of functions that emotions possess can be fully actualized by a vocalist even when performing a relatively small fragment of a classical operatic work. Such a proof can form the basis for the scientific development of emotional scores for operatic works, which will facilitate the work of singing actors in embodying the characters of operatic productions. The materials used in this research include the results of studies by Russian and foreign cultural scholars, art historians, psychologists, and performance theorists, as well as the piano score of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. The research is based on functional and historical-cultural approaches and utilizes methods of art history and psychology. The authors consider emotion primarily as a tool for creating, realizing, and perceiving operatic art that possesses certain functions. In the process of research, the authors sequentially examine several short fragments of Lensky’s aria (in the form of musical notation). Each fragment is examined primarily from the perspective of the actions of the opera characters, followed by an analysis of various characteristics of the musical text of this fragment (dynamic shading, changes in duration and pitch, prevailing vocal range in the part, etc.). The authors also examine the characters’ lines that create the semantic content of the studied fragment. The authors interpret the changes in these parameters of the musical text as means of expressing various functions inherent in the emotions arising when perceiving music (semantic, communicative, expressive, and motivational). The authors have established that Lensky’s aria reveals a whole palette of emotional hues that create the artistic form of the entire opera and the hero’s part, as well as the emotional language of communication between the composer and the viewer/listener. The examples the authors examined demonstrate that, even when performing a relatively brief operatic work, the singing actor, when creatively communicating with the viewer/listener actualizes the entire set of functions that emotions possess. The musical notation itself, having been analyzed and used in the aspect of its formal characteristics while simultaneously being overlaid with the libretto’s conceptual basis, provides the singer with ample opportunities for an emotional impact on the audience and for the most complete disclosure of the embodied character.