Publication details
Scénografie mluví. Hovory Jarky Buriana s Josefem Svobodou
| Title in English | Scenography Speaks. Conversations of Jarka Burian with Josef Svoboda |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Monograph |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Scenography Speaks. Conversations of Jarka Burian with Josef Svoboda is a critical edition of primary archival sources that selects, annotates and comments on 72 hours of conversation between Josef Svoboda (1920-2002), one of the most significant theatre designers of the 2nd half of the 20th century and Jarka Burian (1927—2005), his American biographer and theatre scholar of Czech heritage, recorded over almost 30 years of their close collaboration. Recorded between 1969 and 1994, the tapes unfold Svoboda's personal account of his past, present and future: he recalls the beginnings of his career and the collaborators that have shaped it, he passionately describes productions he is working on, he explains his future visions and intentions. He clarifies the principles of his work enabling his audience to peek inside of the methodologies he used and the technologies he experimented with, revealing his thoughts on scenography and theatre in general. The selected interviews, or their fragments, are divided into four chapters and accompanied throughout by critical commentary. The first chapter exposes the initial encounters of Svoboda and Burian at the end of the "Golden 60s". The second chapter focuses on Svoboda's collaborations on Wagner's operas and points at Svoboda as a teacher by featuring his ideas about education for scenographers as well as his lectures and master classes. The third chapter contains Svoboda's recurring testimonies on the crucial importance of his collaborators and groups Svoboda's more general comments on scenography as a component of performance and an artistic field. The final chapter covers the final phase of Svoboda's work and life in the period after the so-called Velvet Revolution. |
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