Slovenská hudba, Vol. 50, No 1, p.68-81, 2024

Convergences and Divergences in the 21st Century Slovak Opera

The study provides a structured look at original operatic works by Slovak composers that were performed in the post-1989 changed cultural and political conditions, with an accent on the situation in the new millennium. The author focuses on the issue from the point of view of the authors’ poetics, genres, topic, linguistic and dramaturgical aspects of the literary component or target audience groups. She reflects on the extent to which the works composed in the period reflected in the study develop the traditions of Slovak opera of the previous decades and to what extent they move away from them. For quite a few of them, the question arises whether they can be described as opera at all; this topic, which has been resonating in the international opera-theatre discourse for several decades, has become relevant in the Slovak cultural context in this period as well.